If you read Techmeme, the aggregator of news in the Technosphere, you may not have noticed that the world’s financial markets nearly collapsed yesterday and that the world is again looking at a 1930’s style Great Depression scenario. You would not know that artist Damien Hirst flogged off £70m of “fine art” including the Formaldehyde Shark above – nor will you know that art prices nearly always reach top levels at the same time that commercial property development hits the point where it implodes, which is the guaranteed signal of recession.
You will, of course, be very well aware of the latest Apple, Blackberry, Google etc shiny shiny stuff though.
Techno arse
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Essentially we are all fucked – I’m off to the bunker!
Course, I work in investment banking. Been bloody busy this week. No-one’s sacked me, though, so yay.
The 1930s comparisons are, in my considered opinion, overblown crap from people who either like to exaggerate or simply have no clue that there is slightly more to the world than balance sheets.
Whilst I agree with some of what the post says, I must say I don’t think they (or you in your quote) have picked a particularly good way of highlighting it.
So techy web sites are full of tech stuff – so what?
If I pick up the racing post I hardly expect to find it cover to cover with articles on the difficulty of finding jobs if your investment bank goes bust and the like.
There may be an issue with audience outreach amongst tech web sites (and the tech communtiy in general) but I dont think adding a FTSE tracker to ars-technica is the answer…
(And I agree with Jo about some of the stuff we are hearing. Things are bad and they may get worse but shouting ‘We’re all doomed!, Doomed!’ isn’t going to make it all better).
@tm: I don’t think they (or you in your quote) have picked a particularly good way of highlighting it.
True – it was a quick post :) I think the meat of the post was this bit: “But what does it all boil down to in the end? What is the value of that for your daily life, especially when you are not part if the in-crowd of Silicon Valley or the tech industry?”
@squander two: The 1930s comparisons are, in my considered opinion, overblown crap from people who either like to exaggerate or simply have no clue that there is slightly more to the world than balance sheets.
Yeah, it’s a bit OTT certainly, but it’s still a big old pile of scary. Although some of the coverage is unreadable – literally, in the case of today’s Guardian supplement. “We asked a bunch of class warriors whether this means capitalism is dead, and whether a new mung bean-based economic system is the answer. And they all said yes!”
That said, the oft-noted change in attitude from the financial sector – “Leave us alone, Government!” “Oh fuck, we’re fucked! Government! Help us out!” is interesting. I do think to an extent the current crisis is largely the fault of sheer, poorly regulated stupidity.
The Daily Mash is on the case…
“EVERYONE needs to shut it right now because they are making everything worse, according to a new report.”
> the oft-noted change in attitude from the financial sector – “Leave us alone, Government!†“Oh fuck, we’re fucked! Government! Help us out!†is interesting.
I’ll just go on record as approving wholeheartedly of the Bush Administration’s attitude: “Sure, we’ll consider a bail-out if it looks like your bank’s collapse is going to take everyone else with it. But, if it’s just you, bye.”
Who knows how his enemies will spin that one, though. When he refused to bail out Enron, we were repeatedly told that it was because he was friends with Ken Lay and it just went to show how corrupt the Whitehouse was.
> So techy web sites are full of tech stuff – so what?
Yeah, but investment banks are built on IT these days, and a very large number of their staff are therefore techies. Even the ones who aren’t running the IT still tend to be the sort of people who want the latest phone. The tech sites failed to recognise their own audience here.
>The tech sites failed to recognise their own audience here.
Yes, but that’s not really the point the orginal article was making.
To strech my analogy ealier (still) further I’m wouldn’t the racing post to be cover to cover with finance articles, but it wouldn’t surprising to see at least some coverage of the impact a dearth of home grown millionaires is likely to have an our race-horse trainers.
err, read that previous comment assuming that I can both type and proof read.
> Yes, but that’s not really the point the orginal article was making.
What, I’ve got to, like, click on the link and go read the bloody thing?
WTF are they gonna call this megabank, though? Lloyds TSB Halifax Bank Of Scotland?
>>Lloyds TSB Halifax Bank Of Scotland
Internally, HBoS doesn’t stand for anything except HBoS. Or so they tried to tell us. Therefore it’ll be Lloyds TSB HBoS.
WTF would be quite a good name though. ;-)
Nowt wrong with long names. I wish the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation hadn’t decided to abbreviate their name. It’s so much better at full length. The abbreviation’s just bland and anonymous.
My current favourite is SHBLOBST