From Midwest to M.T.A., Pain From Global Gamble

From Midwest to M.T.A., Pain From Global Gamble

Probably one of the best New York Times pieces I’ve read in a long time. The story is about global capitalism and the financial crisis, but what makes it interesting is that they chose to look at how two incredibly discrete cases, five Wisconsin school boards and the New York City M.T.A., were mutually impacted by risky loans from the same Irish bank. As they write:

The trail through Wisconsin, New York and Europe illustrates how this financial crisis has moved around the world so fast, why it is so hard to tame, and why cities, schools and many other institutions will probably struggle for years.

It’s one of those things that’s hard to believe. Given the incredibly “virtual” nature of our present stage of late capitalism, it’s striking to see the various ways in which the chaotic movement of capital, its restlessness and self-destruction, can actually harm people’s lives in very concrete ways, particularly people and/or entities that did not intend to engage in the kind of risk that they found themselves in as a result of capital’s constant ebb-and-flow between wealth creation and wealth destruction.

I wonder if we can even imagine what it would be like if Bush’s social security reform had passed.

(Via A Tiny Revolution.)