The Trillion Dollar Meltdown and Other Media Links
Within a few minutes you can find an SUV-load of self-described “normal” Americans of all social “backgrounds” who would condescend to the bling-bling fantasy culture of “rap” music. But for me, here in the rasx() context, this Negro bling-bling is a capitalist, fascist-of-color caricature of what is happening in the “mainstream” (white approved) elite “culture.”
When money ’ho’s and clothes is all a n-word knows, then the same base, caveman knowledge is running rampantly through the highest echelons in American society. Charles R. Morris, his book, The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash, puts the “great” Alan Greenspan into the bling-bling crunk truck. According the book review at The Economist:
The story has no single villain, but Alan Greenspan comes close. Under him, the Federal Reserve fuelled the housing boom by sharply cutting the cost of short-term money. [Mr.] Greenspan ignored warnings about subprime excess, while eagerly championing “new paradigms”, from hybrid mortgages to credit derivatives.
Kishore Mahbubani has some sensible recommendations…
While the sub-prime credit party hangover pounds on the collective heads of the United States, an uppity Asian, Kishore Mahbubani, brags about “the irresistible shift of global power to the East,” which can hurt the feelings of American bald guys in bowties who talk like they know shit on Nightly Business Report. Coming to the rescue, The Economist in a review of The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East splits hairs:
Mr Mahbubani’s Asian triumphalism is as futile and unconvincing as the Western triumphalism he deplores. That is a shame, as the recommendations he makes for how world governance should be improved are sensible: Chinese and Indian membership of the G8; an end to American and European hogging of the top jobs at the IMF and the World Bank; reform of the UN Security Council to give permanent, veto-holding status to more Asian countries. All are regularly made by Western intellectuals too, even though he claims such minds are determined to maintain the supremacy of the West.
“The Secret to Raising Smart Kids”
Scientific American reporting on “more than three decades of research” reveals the secret: stop bragging in front of your kids about how smart they are on one extreme and stop over-praising your children when they accomplish the slightest task because of a pathological fear of low self-esteem on the other.
It is poetic that this article appears in a magazine with the word American in it because it is very American to assume that a trait like intelligence is fixed—almost mechanical. Here in the rasx() context this “mindset” is yet another ugly stepchild of American racism.
My career in the field in information technology has been a direct confrontation with racist views of fixed intelligence. It is not that the racism is horrible—that is taken for granted—what is horrible to me is the “traditional” (white) view of intelligence itself. So much is lost in the beauty, the aesthetics of intellection, and the divine nature of thought. But enough of my poetry, Scientific American gets more practical:
A belief in fixed intelligence also makes people less willing to admit to errors or to confront and remedy their deficiencies in school, at work and in their social relationships. … A fixed mind-set can similarly hamper communication and progress in the workplace by leading managers and employees to discourage or ignore constructive criticism and advice.
Since my poetry may be ugly to the Ugly American, let’s try some military imagery: people who are “less willing to admit to errors or to confront and remedy their deficiencies” are yellow-bellied cowards. And cowards often overcompensate for their insecurities by being excessively violent, terminating with extreme prejudice.
It is best to address these issues of personal courage with children. “Winning” victory for getting an adult to admit that they are a punk leaves with you with a big baby. So it is better that these people (and they outnumber me by the millions) continue to pretend that they are cool and get the f*’* away from me…