Watching the Panic & Mining the Meltdown

I have a nagging feeling that the economic meltdown is surfacing vital truths about our economic and political system and the way we communicate with each other that will be insightful, revealing and ultimately useful to marketers. Though I'm not sure exactly how, when or in what context it will be so helpful.

Maybe I'm a Pollyanna. Or maybe I just love to watch train wreaks. But I have a deep-seated hunch that there's something useful to learn by watching what's going on. And even if I'm wrong, this at least gives me something to do as I helplessly watch structures, institutions, and assumptions that I counted on crash and burn around me.

Consider these thoughts as a first draft.

1. Silence Isn't Golden. Everybody is blabbing madly on all sides of every issue. Those who are thoughtful and those who are thoughtless equally access the media and blast way. The net result is a great deal of noise but zero insight or ideas. It's more important to posture and to be seen than to have anything to say.

2. Everybody Knows & Nobody Knows. Where you sit dictates where you stand. No one seems to have a seat above the fray or a macro view of things. Partisans of all stripes speculate wildly but most of the fundamentals, questions like -- who are the people whose confidence needs to be rebuilt and what do they genuinely need to feel safe? -- never get answered. Endless experts and specialists are trotted out and ignored; as if anyone knew which experts to believe and which experts got us into this mess in the first place.

Ironically their is a robust debate about Sarah Palin's foreign policy expertise when the unarticulated demand seems to be for a leader with keen appreciation for what we need and a dollop of common sense to edit and put all the expert opinion into context and stake out a practical, workable solutions. What you know or claim to know seems more important than what you can do with what you know or what you learn. If you can pronounce "Ahmadinejad" but don't have a clue how to deal with Iran how impressed should I be?

3. Democracy is About Deals. Our system of government is a trial by ordeal. Claims, counterclaims, partisan interests and facts all get sorted out in a raucous process of horse-trading in which compromises deliver half-a-loaf or less to all participants. The bailout debate has pulled back the curtain on this often loud, messy and sometimes ugly process where success is an amalgam of self-interest,alliances, volume, threats and timing.

If a deal will ultimately be struck, how does behavior leading up to it influence the outcome or does it? People aren't that dumb. In fact democracy is based on the idea that collectively we can figure most things out and that 535 heads are better than one; especially W's or a royal one. Most understand that in any given situation there are a couple of real options plus the evergreen and universally-applicable choices; do nothing and cash it all in. So why do we need all the drama and distraction? 

4. Class/Caste is a Factor. We don't like to talk about it but Its always just below the surface. The Wall Street versus Main Street rhetoric lays bare considerable class antagonism that has always existed in the US. Getting the maximum relief for the maximum number of people has been the object of intense negotiations and equally intense political grand-standing. There is a history of the working class bailing out the upper class in our a long history of boom and bust cycles. And each bailout leaves its scars and its political residue.    

 

Comments

[Engago Team]

Looks like you are writing a Cluetrain manifesto for economics.
Keep writing.

[Search Engine Optimization Services Provider]

Excellent post.:)