Wall street Religion...

bonkey

I was thinking back on a thread we had a while back about the Angelus being on TV. Y'know - that daily few moments of silence when the bell rings and we all listen to that gong-gong-gong. Well, we *would* all listen to it if we were all staunch catholics - thats not my poiunt though.

What struck me as funny was that I was watching CNN when something made me remember that whole thread....

CNN's Business Today (or whatever it was called) took a few moments out (no commentary - silence!) to wait for, and then listen to the closing bell on the NYSE. Out of curiosity, I checked the next 2 days, and the same thing happened. Each day, the closing bell was covered live, with no commentary, and with anything up to 30 seconds of almost reverent silence.

Is this the religion of capitalism?

jc

Biffa Bacon

I wonder is it something to do with 9-11? Or did they always do that?

Hairy Homer

Speaking of Wall St Religion..........
.......one of the consolations of the stock market crash and technology slump is we no longer get regaled with the half-baked pseudo-intellectual rantings of ultra capitalist adherents to the philosophy of Objectivism.

These truly horrible people followed the guru Ayn Rand, a humourless arrogant hopelessly embittered Russian emigre to America whose oeuvre included such charmingly titled works as The Virtue of Selfishness and whose heroes uttered lines like 'I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine'

Now I'm all for self reliance but these guys (and girls) go to the extremes of distrusting any human emotion and arguing that any action that is not strictly in one's own self interest is morally wrong. This includes helping the sick, the hungry, the orphaned etc

Not surprisingly, their simplistic nihilisitic ideology was eagerly snatched upon as supposedly intellectual justification for the vast wealth made by those who were in the right place at the right time, especially at the height of the dot.com boom. It gave rise to a following almost approaching a cult in the late 1990s and even techy magazines ran features about the importance of Rand's 'philosophy' to the 'New Economy' (sic).

If there are any such people still out there, I reckon they should declare themselves and all right thinking people should agree that each and every one of them have a hard copy edition of Atlas Shrugged , Rand's magnum opus—and I do mean magnum—inserted up their fundamental orifices.

Do I hear a cock crowing three times?

Sand

Hmm, now that you mention the "culture of selfishness" I always found economic game theory interesting - its based on the principle that people will make choices that result in the highest payoff for themselves. However, in a series of tests where they got two people to play games they often found that people who didnt know each other at all "collaborated" - by coming to some mutually beneficial agreement or the "winner" would share the prize with the guy who lost. The people running the tests put it down to people sense of fair play, which altered the payoffs - people got a bigger payoff from being nice than winning the game.

Interesting thing is that the above applied only when the two players were in contact. When the two palyers couldnt see/talk to each other they acted purely in their own self interest.

Disciples of the selfishness you mention might fall into the camp of those not in contact with the other players of the game.

amen

not sure about CNN but the market always starts/closes with the ring of a bell.

I believe Irish stock exchange does the same

davros

Originally posted by Hairy Homer
If there are any such people still out there, I reckon they should declare themselves and all right thinking people should agree that each and every one of them have a hard copy edition of Atlas Shrugged , Rand's magnum opus—and I do mean magnum—inserted up their fundamental orifices.

Worth mentioning that Alan Greenspan is a disciple of Rand.

As for Atlas Shrugged, there's a one note book if there ever was one. I gave up about 3/4 of the way through during one of the 60 page speeches on self-interest.

potlatch

If you watch 'The Business' on BBC News 24 late at night, they always show the closing bell. They often get guest ringers, children and people wearing silly costumes to do it - they they all start waving like fat Yanks and cheering the close to another day pillaging the earth!

A ritual? Certainly. But then, every profession has its rituals when you think about it. What do you think mass is? 'Ritual for profit!'

As for the culture of selfishness: Bush, in his State of the Union speech, postured an end to the egocentric materialism that Rand espoused. He said America should change into a caring, sharing nation that puts spiritual wealth ahead of material wealth. But that was always just posturing.

America has always been and, for a long time to come, will always be the market.

Hairy Homer

Originally posted by davros

Worth mentioning that Alan Greenspan is a disciple of Rand.

Well he was once friendly with her, but if you take a look at some of the loony right Websites (may I suggest www.capitalismmagazine.com - go on, it's a hoot) you will find that those who claim most ideological purity with the Mad Russian regard Greenspan as a dangerous command-economy dictator.

I think they probably saw him helping an old lady cross the road and were angry that she hadn't invested earlier in some 'road crossing insurance scheme for the elderly'.

dahamsta

They always have the opening bell on CNN business, and as long as I've looked at it it's been a reverential affair, with a different guest ringing the bell every day.

Uh-huh-huh-huh, Becky Anderson...

adam