November 12, 2009

Is the whole economy a pyramid scheme? So it would seem in Collapse, a movie that may crash our dogmatic slumbers... or not:(
posted by Dan Folkus 15 years ago
  • When I first had the stock market explained to me, I thought that when I bought 100 dollars worth of stock from ACME, then ACME would essentially receive a 100 dollars and use it to build their company. When I decided to sell my stock, the ACME would cut me a check for what my 100 dollars helped them get. This made some sense. Then I learned a bit about daytrading and some of the things that are done with stocks. I then realized that what I had originally thought was completely wrong. It was around that time that I wondered if our entire economic system was sort of a fiction. And I wondered if that fiction were exposed or destroyed, then everything economic would collapse. I still wonder that. I will need to see this movie. It will help determine just how crazy I am.
  • I'm not sure where you get "pyramid scheme" from this write up. It's about oil dependency. Am I missing something?
  • Of course any economy based on greed and selfishness forms a pyramid shape. Before David Rhodes demonstrated suckers will always believe you'll get more money back than you send to a scheme, there were chain letters, Amway, MLMs, Snake Oil and so on. Where did all those trillions of bail-out money come from? Why the gubmint printed it, because it can. Even it believes it is the most successful means of generating income. However only those who are prepared to listen to a monologue recited in a meat packing plant for two hours ala Spalding Gray' is going to learn The Troof!
  • Certainly NOT! However, I did buy a bridge.
  • But Ed, he SAID it was a pyramid scheme in his cinematic monologue... The idea may have some merit though, when the wealth of nations is half merely representational. Now if the bubble bursts, won't somebody be left holding a really half empty bag? Also, I knew Spalding Grey. He was a very funny, nice guy - so nice that the depth of his depression didn't surface much. Nor did he surface much after finally jumping off the Staten Island Ferry in mid winter...
  • P.S. The cinematic trailor can be watched by scrolling down to the BOTTOM of the write up!
  • Oops, it was flurker, not EdArzakh who missed the trailer section. Speed reading sucks.
  • On the plus side, that bridge is awesome.
  • Why, thank you Pallas. You get a great view of my resort land in the swamps.