Why Are We Forced to Worship at the Feet of 'Mythical' Financial Markets Controlled by the Elite?

[txlibdem]

[font size=14]Why Are We Forced to Worship at the Feet of 'Mythical' Financial Markets Controlled by the Elite?[/font]
We are told to appease the market gods or face eternal financial damnation.
December 20, 2011 | By Les Leopold

The markets are "jittery," "upset," "skittish" and "unnerved." They are "confident" or "unsure." They are "demanding" that political leaders "put up or shut up." And they are "reacting unfavorably" to Obama's newfound populism.

These are just a few of the many ways financial markets are described each and every day by the media, financial players and public officials. At first it seems as if these markets are humanoids onto which we project our feelings. Yet, on closer inspection, it's more like we have ascribed to them god-like powers. We are told to appease the market gods or face eternal financial damnation. As President Obama warned Europe recently, they must "muster the political will" to "settle markets down."

Why do we worship these angry market gods?

Trading has been around for as long as humans. We, no doubt, increased our chances of survival through trading what we had more of for what we needed or wanted. The more complex our societies became the more markets grew. At some point during the Renaissance, markets emerged that traded money as well as goods, as city-states and nations sought ways to fund wars. But these markets were far from god-like. Sovereign nations ruled supreme and money-lenders had to do their bidding if they hoped to be repaid or in some cases, if they hoped to avoid execution. Even Adam Smith didn't suggest that financial markets had god-like powers. In fact, these markets seemed more like petulant children throwing tantrums as they puffed up tulip bubbles, South Sea bubbles, railroad bubbles and periodic financial panics."

http://www.alternet.org/economy/153497/why_are_we_forced_to_worship_at_the_feet_of_mythical_financial_markets_controlled_by_the_elite

[CJCRANE]

1. And their mouthpieces - the rating agencies. nt

[orpupilofnature57]

2. We didn't listen to Thomas or Ike.

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/37700.html

[cbrer]

13. Yeah

What he said...

[izquierdista]

3. Because of free market idolatry

Modern economists try to observe, analyze, and predict, and make it a science subject to mathematical laws, but they are still drowned out by the superstitious, who use the mental frames of religion to guide their think(?)ing.

[kristopher]

15. +1

But you have to admit that the 1% does contribute mightily by doing everything they can to turn the science into a way to promote the belief that money itself is the end-all/be-all of human existence.

[izquierdista]

16. What priest doesn't pass the collection plate?

That's all the 1% are, the exalted priests at the Church of the Almighty Dollar.

[Alcibiades]

19. Of course, there are economists who do that

but, on the whole, I think it's a pretty ideologically driven discipline, at least in the US. In many instances, there's a revolving door between academia and Wall Street The superiority of the "free market" (which, in actuality, is one wherein the haves use their market power to erect barriers to potential competitors as a form of rent seeking) is mainly taken as orthodox doctrine. Much of what passes for economics is simply dogma. They must realize this: even a Randian zealot like Greenspan, when actually serving, undertook policies that he really didn't trust what he professed to be fundamentally true.

I like the use of the term idolatry, but it applies to a great number of economists: the difference is that they posit their idology as universally true, borne out inexorably by their math.

[izquierdista]

23. I was thinking of Krugman when I wrote that

I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he knows the assumptions and axioms used in economist math and where their models might go awry. A whole mess of the others do not and do not deserve that benefit of doubt, you are right.

[limpyhobbler]

4. yep we shouldn't be at the mercy of day traders any more so than the daily gamblers in las vegas

[Minarchist]

5. Because we continue electing people that they control.

[Larry Ogg]

10. And the people they control are given millions of dollars in order to buy M$M celebrity status...

They in affect, hand pick the greater and lesser evils that they want all of us debt slaves to vote for, and because it cost a fortune to get elected, they have the advantage of weeding out the ones they don't want us to vote for.

And because of that, over time, the masses have been reduced to fighting over witch is better, to be hung with a blue rope or to be hung with a red rope.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. We can choose not to and by doing so see what real power they yield

Iceland did it. Countries that nationalize and then pay a pittance for that which they took are another example.

[sulphurdunn]

7. I have never been

able to fathom, nor has anyone ever been able to explain to my satisfaction, exactly what benefit financial speculators confer to society that outweighs the damage they cause. I have always heard that they "stabilize" markets and "efficiently" allocate resources, yet the evidence strongly persuades that they do exactly the opposite. Neither have I ever been able to grasp the rationale for how turning the finances of a nation over to a private bank benefits the nation more than the bank.

[ThomThom]

8. we seem to have some ideas that keep getting repeated over and over

that are based on nonexistent facts like:
what is good for business is good for the country
supply side economics works
tax cuts for the rich stimulate the economy
markets allocate resources efficiently
government spending is a drag on the economy
government spending is not efficient

in fact the exact opposite is true every time
I'm sure there are other myths I have omitted.

[txlibdem]

20. Yup. Each one shown to be false... time and time again.

Yet the media laps it up when the Repukes sing that tired old song again and again and again.

[dkf]

9. It's because retirement depends on investments...or welfare.

[sulphurdunn]

12. How are retirements

based upon investment income working for most people these days? Only Wall Street banks need welfare to see a return on investment. The rest of us do just fine when we regulate the bankers.

[dkf]

17. How can you retire if you don't have investment income?

[sulphurdunn]

22. I didn't say you could,

and you won't for sure if your banker and broker aren't regulated.

[chervilant]

11. Yeah, well,

Mr. Leopold has written a topical analysis from the capitalistic perspective of someone with little or no knowledge of Economic Anthropology. Implicit in such missives is the assumption that capitalism is THE economic behavior of our species, and no other economic paradigm can supplant the capitalistic model.

We can--and MUST--find a way to be economic creatures that doesn't impose hierarchy or radical income inequity.

[orpupilofnature57]

14. Mass TM maybe?

http://www.davidlynchfoundation.org/

[freshwest]

18. Because capitalism is the most powerful faith-based religion in the USA. Heretics will be shot.

[txlibdem]

21. +1

Heretics and the un-believers. We can't have any competing economic systems or the lie that Capitalism actually works would be shown false time and again -- as has happened time and again.