David Liss is the reviewer for the Book World,Nov.23,2008. It is a delightfully engaging, smart, funny,clever and terrifying analysis of the role debt plays in our culture, our consciousness, our economy and our ecology. She goes back to ancient worship to show how, in the afterlife, the soul's status was valued using models of credit and debit. If systems from personal relationships to global financial markets, operate on the assumption of basic fairness, then what happens when actors cannot or will not repay their debts? As we have seen with investment giants over-leveraged with bad derivatives, everything begins to break down, including the illusions that once held things together. Ineqality is reaching boiling point, and on human, national, economic and environmental fronts, we are setting ourselves up for some monumental payback. It is scary stuff, but lucky for us it is also entremely entertainings.
My comment: When we look at the paper currency,we find the small print:"This note is legal tender for all debts,public and private" How true when we are witnessing the public sector comes to rescue the private sector apropos of the global financial crisis as a clear evidence! Moreover,when we turn to the other side of the bill,we find the Caps: "IN GOD WE TRUST" We must trust the Divine Providence since the mundane world is a credit-based economy. All of us shall leave if we are aware of the letter M on the palm of our hands.
Francis Shieh a.k.a. Xie Shihao, an avid student of economics trying to learn such empiricism with spirituality in the secular society with trust and confidence of the papers(i.e. currency and government securities or commercial papers et al) plus plastic cards with financial clout that we cherish dearly. Such is in the light vein with intellectual humor if and when detected. Happy Thanksgiving (Nov.27,2008) to all those that we are indebted for the credits that we deserve or otherwise.(sic) Hehehahahoho all the way to strive to live to be centenarians. Amen!
Sunday, November 23,2008 at 7.08 a.m.
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