The Very Nearly Perfectly Accurate Primer on the Financial Meltdown, the Advanced Version
Yesterday I directed your attention to Matt Miller's piece in the Washington Post in which he tries to explain what's going on in the world as he would if he were speaking to his young daughter. Today I noted a piece by Jeffrey Snider that is really the same thing but with all the turgid economics included.
This is what you want to read if you want all the gory details of the way human sacrifice works these days. In fact, I like Jeffrey Snider's work because in virtually everything I read from him he is merely explaining the full apparatus for standard value extraction practices engendered by the World System.
As I read it, all I could think about was the Black-Scholes model that everyone raved about once upon a time, that novel formula that could guarantee returns on an investment no matter what happened. Snider's piece demonstrates that the Black-Scholes seduction is still alive and well.
As it should be.
World inhabitants need it all to survive. Doesn't matter if you're the highest living billionaire or the lowest slogging gutter dweller, you are always looking for the next human sacrifice hit. Does it involve lying? Of course. Does it involve great big smiles on the well-dressed liars? Certainly. Does it involve lots of exploiting the numbers and manipulating the law to keep the best of it humming along? How else could it work. Does it involve millions of people bumbling about clueless about any of it, much less the One Way out, yet still handing over gobs of their own cash to these people so the latest Black-Scholes technique will get them their cut? Nothing but.
And we all do that because we feverishly clutch our World System contracts. Should someone bring up the idea that, hey, how about instead we all gather in Christ's love and provide the tremendous wealth of the gifts He gave us on our own without Caesar's direct help which we wouldn't need anyway-- should someone actually suggest that, he'd get completely marginalized, pushed into inconsequence.
Yet still, Christ wants faithfulness from His followers. The World doesn't like it? That's kind of the way it is supposed to be.
A Christ follower can't not like it. Sure they may not have the fruits of the World's value extraction. Even if the Christ follower has none of it, he is rejoicing.
He has Him.
And the Kingdom that comes with it.
This is what you want to read if you want all the gory details of the way human sacrifice works these days. In fact, I like Jeffrey Snider's work because in virtually everything I read from him he is merely explaining the full apparatus for standard value extraction practices engendered by the World System.
As I read it, all I could think about was the Black-Scholes model that everyone raved about once upon a time, that novel formula that could guarantee returns on an investment no matter what happened. Snider's piece demonstrates that the Black-Scholes seduction is still alive and well.
As it should be.
World inhabitants need it all to survive. Doesn't matter if you're the highest living billionaire or the lowest slogging gutter dweller, you are always looking for the next human sacrifice hit. Does it involve lying? Of course. Does it involve great big smiles on the well-dressed liars? Certainly. Does it involve lots of exploiting the numbers and manipulating the law to keep the best of it humming along? How else could it work. Does it involve millions of people bumbling about clueless about any of it, much less the One Way out, yet still handing over gobs of their own cash to these people so the latest Black-Scholes technique will get them their cut? Nothing but.
And we all do that because we feverishly clutch our World System contracts. Should someone bring up the idea that, hey, how about instead we all gather in Christ's love and provide the tremendous wealth of the gifts He gave us on our own without Caesar's direct help which we wouldn't need anyway-- should someone actually suggest that, he'd get completely marginalized, pushed into inconsequence.
Yet still, Christ wants faithfulness from His followers. The World doesn't like it? That's kind of the way it is supposed to be.
A Christ follower can't not like it. Sure they may not have the fruits of the World's value extraction. Even if the Christ follower has none of it, he is rejoicing.
He has Him.
And the Kingdom that comes with it.
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