f. barnes wrote:
> On Mar 5, 1:59 pm, T Jr Hardman <blockspam_thard...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> wrote:
>> f. barnes wrote:
>>> On Mar 5, 5:52 am, MURS radios <horsesh...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>> Fraud compounds woes of U.S. housing crisis - including IDENTITY
THEFT
>>>> (favorite ploy of ILLEGAL
ALIENS):http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080305/lf_nm/usa_housing_fraud_dc
>>>> - Stewart (San Diego Minuteman)
>>> It's very strange. Everyone, I mean everyone, knew this housing
>>> crises was coming, that because of lender business practices it was
>>> inevitable, and yet not one lender nor one government official did one
>>> damn thing to try to avert it. It's like as if the "powers that be"
>>> wanted this and made it happen just as quickly as possible. Why?
>> Without too much trouble, one could probably come up with a wide range
of
>> explanations, ranging from grandiose and frankly bizarre conspiracy
theories
>> that explain everything from the assassination of JFK to sunspots (or
did I
>> get those reversed?) all of the way to overly simplistic explanations
such
>> as "it's all about the greed, ya know".
>>
>> All things being equal, I'm tempted to take the Ockham's Razor
approach, and
>> figure that the simplest explanation that fits the facts would be the
one
>> most likely to eventually be shown to be true.
>>
>> One of the better explanations is "thundering herd". Why do herds
thunder,
>> when they know that they might very well go thundering right over the
edge
>> of a cliff? It's the basic dynamic of herds, mostly because if you
don't
>> thunder right along with the rest of the herd, you will get where they
got
>> to after they did, meaning that whatever grazing the was has been
devoured
>> before you got there. Fail to thunder right along with the rest of the
herd,
>> and you may starve.
>>
>> Yet there are also questions one might reasonably ask, which devolve
from
>> the thundering-herd explanation.
>>
>> What if the herd is thundering because it was stampeded?
>>
>> They say that you can't buffalo a buffalo but if you're clever enough
you
>> can bear a bear. Somewhere between those metaphors circle other
metaphors,
>> ranging from the sort that results in a nice allegory handbag, through
>> assorted circling wolves, vultures, and the multitude of metaphorical
(if
>> not metaphysical) fleas.
>>
>> To paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, "aaaaah! look out for the bats!"
>>
>> But it's not the bats to which we should pay the most attention; nay,
it's
>> to Thompson's other observation about how "there's nothing so helpless
and
>> depraved as a man in the depths of an ether binge". That may be the
fitting
>> simile here.
>>
>> Imagine, if you will, a herd thundering along, stampeded by bats,
evading
>> the bears, binged as heck on whatever ether warps their woof, and what
>> happens is that they know damned well there's a cliff right in front of
>> them, but their every instinct is to keep on keeping on and they're too
>> out-of-it to pause to reflect. Anyone who does pause to reflect either
gets
>> swept right along or gets ground underfoot. The vultures can come along
and
>> pick up the flattened bits, and the wolves can keep the pack panicked.
All
>> the bears have to do it to be at the bottom of the cliff but not where
the
>> buffalo will land on them.
>>
>> Now, you are the proud recipient of a Thomas Hardman Explains Modern
>> Economic Cycles 101 paper. After all, what else could a meta be for?
>>
>> Somewhere in all of this feeding frenzy of the allegories one might
expect
>> that there would be herdsmen, but the fact is, the number and size of
the
>> staffers that can steer the herd where you want it when it's in a
peaceful
>> grazing mode, that staffing level will have no effect, at worst, and
>> negligible effect, at best, when the thundering herd has gotten up to
speed
>> and will keep running until either they are utterly spent, or have
found
>> themselves a nice cliff. As a rule all anyone can do is to hope that
they
>> pile up against the base of a cliff rather than run off of the top of
one.
>>
>> The only other thing people have to keep in mind is, whatever the
>> destination of the thundering herd, you don't want to get between them
and
>> that destination. That doesn't mean that, having stayed out of the way,
you
>> can't go clean up behind them, and wade into the resulting carnage, and
walk
>> out afterwards having cornered the supply of the raw material of
buffalo
>> robes. Leave the rest to the bears; eventually they will hibernate and
you
>> may collect their thick lustrous pelts when they do.
>
> That is a very good explanation, and it may even be correct. However,
> this question you asked is left unanswered: "What if the herd is
> thundering because it was stampeded?" I do worry about that. When
> and what cliff will the herd be stampeded over next? And why would
> they do it? If "they" exist?
Heh heh.
The thundering herd, when it stampedes, is always stampeded by "they", but
"they" could be anything from a member of the herd, to outside forces
which
might be anything from a thunderclap to a bird landing on the ass of one
of
the herd. It could also be hungry hunters.
But if you don't try to stick too closely to the allegory, you are
probably
better off; rigorously deconstructed, hungry hunters translates to
"foreign
militarists", in probably most cases. If you translate it as "cackling
jackals" taking a nip at the feet of some of the herd's outermost members,
not exactly expecting to cause a stampede but not going to be upset if
that
does happen, you might be closer to target.
A little trick I use to try to maintain a reasonable facsimile of sanity
is
what I call "closest attribution of blame".
For example, in the excellent cult-classic movie "Repo Man", a disaffected
white suburban punk is bewailing the fact that having robbed a liquor
store,
he is going to jail. "I blame society," he says. And in fact that may be
where the blame _ultimately_ lies, but the real facts are that the closest
attributable blame lies with him; he's the guy who picked up the shotgun
and
knocked over a liquor store.
But perhaps most im****tantly, there is what I call "intermediate
attribution
of blame". Our disaffected white suburban punk knocked over the liquor
store
because he's a junkie, and while the immediate blame is his, you can't
realistically ignore either his dealer nor the heroin im****ters, etc. But
because you can't ignore them doesn't mean that you should blame them,
rather than the junkie.
It also doesn't mean that policy should not have the aim of preventing
desperate addicts from robbing liquor stores, through the means of
preventing junkies by preventing addiction by preventing supplies of
heroin.
So, who's to blame, the junkie, the dealer, the heroin im****ting industry,
the poppy-growers? The junkie may be right in saying "I blame society" but
that's also a cop-out ****fting the blame as far from him as possible.
To deconstruct from the allegory to reality, people should have known
better
than to buy into the housing bubble and "leverage their equity" and then
go
out and use that "leverage" as a basis to get ridiculously overextended on
credit, above and beyond their participation in the housing bubble. That's
fiscal heroin, and wallowing in it and blaming society doesn't make it any
better. Then again, anxious lenders handing out free-samples of financial
smack isn't exactly promoting sobriety in the consumer.
Seriously, probably the majority of the people now about to go down the
tubes on the housing-crisis bubble collapse are basically falling victim
to
having no previous exposure to, and thus no comprehension of, the scams
that
dopers play on each other. They don't need a bail-out, what they need is a
Twelve Step Program.
First thing they have to do is hit bottom...
--
The immigration debate in this country is, in fact,
no longer a debate. It's a three-ring circus
with a very crowded clown car.
--Beth Slovic
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