Vaclav Havel about the designers’ civilisation(forum2000.cz)
forum2000.cz
Vaclav Havel about the designers’ civilisation
http://www.forum2000.cz/en/projects/forum-2000-conferences/2010/speeches/remarks-by-vaclav-havel-at-the-opening-ceremony/
2 comments
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"I believe that the recent financial and economic crisis was of great importance and in its ultimate essence it was actually a very edifying signal to the contemporary world."
I'm glad he prefaces the next paragraph with "Most":
"Most economists relied directly or indirectly on the idea that the world, including human conduct, is more or less understandable, scientifically describable and hence predictable. Market economics and its entire legal framework counted on our knowing who man is and what aims he pursues, what was the logic behind the actions of banks or firms, what the shareholding public does and what one may expect from some particular individual or community."
Because I know that the Austrians (most hard-core free market types) don't fit into the above.
"And all of a sudden none of that applied. Irrationality leered at us from all the stock-exchange screens. And even the most fundamentalist economists, who – having intimate access to the truth - were convinced with unshakeable assurance that the invisible hand of the market knew what it was doing, had suddenly to admit that they had been taken by surprise."
The invisible hand of the market did know it was doing. It was correcting an unsustainable boom. Were sovereign debt crises the fault of falling prices and fluctuations in stocks, or because governments spent more than they took in? Was the housing boom in the US a result of the market going crazy for no reason? (hint: take a look at the CRA, low interest rates, fannie and freddie to figure out that the answer is no)
The "visible hand" was what screwed up. This includes: governments and coordination of activities between central bankers/globalists to explicitly run the course of the world on their fiat money regimes.