History remix!

[lapsedmodernist]

For some reason the whole thing with Iceland (and reading this article) has completely fried my brain into some kind of feverish late-stage-postmodern-capitalism bricolage, where unanchored free-floating event nodes are, like, remixed or something.

The IMF will have to bail out Iceland! This heralds the IMF coming full circle to its original post-WWII raison d'etre. History remix!

An IMF rescue program will come with the usual conditionalities, natch. Privatize, cut public expenditure, stimulate growth through (further) deregulation.

Article says: this has happened before but never in Europe or almost-Europe (some bizarre strategic-distancing phrasing in the article there--like when some family accidentally burns down their house, and the neighbors interviewed on TV make it clear that they weren't really friends, just saw each other around in the supermarket and chatted during PTA meetings), we are used to this happening in Argentina!

What Happened in Argentina happened because of the IMF conditionalities--privatize, cut public expenditure, stimulate growth through (further) deregulation.

IMF would make Iceland peg their currency to the Euro.

What Happened in Argentina happened because the peso was pegged to the dollar as a part of their "structural adjustment."

This is some kind of fucked-up remix by an insane Brechtian DJ who is putting on some kind of shadow puppetry morality play projected onto the crumbling fourth wall of "the global economy."

ETA

Comments

[nerak-g.livejournal.com]

My brain was also scrambling around an article on this earlier.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

what remix did you come up with?

[congogirl.livejournal.com]

Just amazing.

But obviously what none of us understands is that These Things Work, it's just that it has to be in exactly the right conditions! If deregulation doesn't work, deregulate MOAR! It's not the theory that's the problem, it's OBVIOUSLY the EXECUTION.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

sure it works if the only factor you look at is short-term economic growth measured in such a way that, say, environmental catastrophes can have a positive effect on the GNI. And when in a few years the whole thing goes to shit, it's time to deregulate more!

[the-macnab.livejournal.com]

Pegging the krona to the euro is such a stupid god-damned idea.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I know, right?

[mjmj.livejournal.com]

did you hear what the house repubs were offering as their reason for initially rejecting the $700 billion bailout? because the plan was the wrong one. what was the right one? cutting the capital gains tax. for them, there is no problem for which cutting taxes on the wealthy and trickle down are not the solution.