Dow Jones down 252: 80 years later managed capitalism is in a crises of legitimacy

At 1pm on October 24th 1929, the vice president of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Whitney marched onto the stock exchange floor after a morning of devastating losses and purchased well over the sale price in front of everyone $20million dollars worth of US. Steel stock. He then went on to purchase General Electric, AT&T and other blue chip stocks spending $130million. His move funded by the wealthiest elites at the time was an attempt to insert confidence into a financial system on the verge of collapse. It worked. Until Monday 28th of October, four days later.

80 years and one week later, Keynesian managed capitalism post Bretton Woods is on the verge of collapse because of the neo liberal deregulation free market virus that has infected much of the international financial hegemony. This collapse isn't just the boom bust of dynamic capitalism, it is a challenge to the legitimacy of capitalism in the exact same way the Great Depression was a challenge to the legitimacy of capitalism. The social destruction these crashes cause in terms of mass unemployment make large numbers of people disillusioned with the system, it was from this social malaise that Capitalism was forced to adopt a welfare state in order to avoid citizens rioting in the street and becoming tempted away by communism or fascism.

When the real economy is worth $8 Trillion per year and the financial economy is worth over $330 Trillion per, you can see how far detached the financial economy has become to the real economy. The weapons of financial destruction these wealthy elite created to rape and pillage for their corporate greed have damaged the global economy to the point of collapse. Adam Smith's invisible hand is about to give us a fisting.

As times get much harsher economically, watch for the rise of fascists in western society and mass radicalization of the poor as the billion dollar bonus payouts create a level of class hatred Osama Bin Laden would've been jealous of.

Our delusion that we are past the recession (Key scores top marks for crisis plan)is just that, a delusion. We saw the exact same false dawns post the 1929 crash before the social damage caused was fully felt 4 years later in 1934 with 25% of Americans unemployed. It took a world war to get out of that Depression.

Consumer capitalist culture of plasma TVs, SUVs and cosmetic surgery all paid for on credit cards was never sustainable economically or environmentally. We are in such denial about issues , we have moved to ignoring them now...

Sick of being told how we're all killing the planet?
A survey has found New Zealanders are suffering "green fatigue" through constant warnings of an approaching environmental armageddon.

...if you aren't guilty, you haven't been paying attention.