Peter,
I once read, “When you owe the bank five thousand dollars, you have a problem, when you owe the bank five million dollars, the bank has a problem. This is maybe why Geithner can talk down to China and other U.S. creditors. This argument was discredited in some articles I had read early in the crisis. Why, I don’t understand, especially since China is relatively poor in gold but rich in US treasuries. Maybe the Chinese aren’t as smart as everyone seems to think since they waited so long to consider and accumulate gold. Surely it was understood by all countries how the system was arranged for the US to be the consuming engine of the world, and it wouldn’t have been much of stretch even twenty years ago to have projected where we are today. But then, Keynesianism is a shortsighted economic model. The only reason it probably was effective for so long is because the vast majority of human beings are also shortsighted, even the Chinese.
Unfortunately, I think psychopaths have taken over most if not all Governments in the world and cooperate on that basis in order to dominate and control “socialized” individuals. When Gordon Brown would say “together we can do such and such” as he often did, he wasn’t addressing “socialized” personalities. The main character traits of psychopaths are they lack conscience, remorse, shame, guilt, are glib, grandiose, and have pathological egos. Socialized individuals could not, and would not preside over the death of hundreds of millions of innocent people that fill the pages of human history. Only anti-social individuals who lack conscience could. Thanks to Hervey Cleckley’s seminal work on psychopaths “The Mask of Sanity” written in the 1940’s and books like “Without Conscience” by Robert D. Hare, and “The Sociopath Next Door” by Martha Stout, we now understand the psychological landscape of the Psychopath. Cleckley’s book in my opinion is the greatest work ever presented to humanity by any author. By “humanity” I mean those of us who cooperate to coexist and live in peace. History suggests that the vast majority of those who have governed were not ‘socialized’ individuals. Going forward, the human race can only progress though a widespread awareness and knowledge that psychopaths often called inter species predators are among us, that they can mimic human emotions without having these underlying emotions. I recall a line out of one of the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies where Inspector Clouseau said, “I suspect everyone, and I suspect no one.” That is my position today. I have little doubt that information on the subject of psychopathy was suppressed as much as possible for many years by powerful psychopaths. Now, I think the cat is out of the bag and humanity as a whole is on the verge of recognizing and understanding the true origin of senselessness and chaos on the planet. Carl G. Jung believed that the human race was characterized by a progression toward higher consciousness. If he is correct, then I do not think the regressive lower consciousness of psychopaths will dominate a higher consciousness in humanity.
Chuck
