Travels etc.

Have recently watched "Four Horsemen" - documentary on current global economic issues. It was interesting, because I have recently read a book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man  by John Perkins who is also featured in the documentary. What I found is that though the general idea towards "greater good" is natural, the ways how issues are explained in the movie and the reasons and solutions that are briefly outlined are not consistent sometimes with either logic or obvious observations. 33:00 - The narrator states that the inflow of lending money into the housing market led to an unprecedent inflation. "House prices rose and rose." This completely satisfies the classical economic theory that guys just praised a bit earlier in the video. Because interest rates were low and people borrowed more and more to buy properties. But is it not because there is always a demand for property? People have to live somewhere. At 33:40 Prof. Simon Johnson (for...

Читаю вот в книге " Социальная психология и история " Б.Ф. Поршнева: "Напомним, что когда Ленин в статье "О лозунге Соединенных Штатов Европы" писал о возможности победы социализма "первоначально в немногих или даже в одной, отдельно взятой капиталистической стране", он имел в виду не обособленность этой страны, а ее антагонизм к мировой капиталистической системе: "Победивший пролетариат этой страны, экспроприировав капиталистов и организовав у себя социалистическое производство, встал бы против остального, капиталистического мира, привлекая к себе угнетенные классы других стран..." 1 Эти слова, разумеется, в полной мере относятся и к тому времени, когда на карте уже не одна социалистическая страна, а мировая система стран социализма, антагонистичная мировой системе монополистического капитализма." Как интересно. 1 Ленин В. И. Полн. собр. соч., т. 26, с. 354

Some interesting ideas from the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith regarding big capital: "The trade of a joint-stock company is always managed by a court of directors. This court, indeed, is frequently subject, in many respects, to the control of a general court of proprietors. But the greater part of these proprietors seldom pretend to understand any thing of the business of the company ; and when the spirit of faction happens not to prevail among them, give themselves no trouble about it , but receive contentedly such halfyearly or yearly dividend as the directors think proper to make to them." "The directors of such companies, however, being the managers rather of other people’s money than of their own , it cannot well be expected that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own. Like the stewards of a rich man, they are apt to consider attention to small matters as not ...