Re: <nettime> Fw: Enemies of the Future

[McKenzie Wark <mw35@is6.nyu.edu>]

Felix is quite right, the bubble is not the main thing. But it
is not entirely irrelevant either. The 'irrational exuberance'
of investors plowed a lot of money into dotcoms that, in
hindsight, could have been better invested elswhere. Its the
price you pay, in a market economy for getting resources
allocated more or less right most of the time -- those times
when investment just goes up in smoke. Perhaps there will
be a hard swing the other way -- investors avoiding what may
be pretty good bets and under investing in internet opportunites.

What may matter more in the long run is whether there really
was an underlying improvement in productivity in the economy as
a whole. There are arguments for it, but where's the evidence?
Has the long boom in the US been driven by anything other than
sucking in money from retail investors at home and institutional
investors abroad that might otherwise have gone elsewhere?

I can't help wondering about the role of the US based business
media in selling the idea of the US as a place to invest. All
that relentless stock boosting hype. For a short while those
prophesies can be perfectly self fulfilling.

k

______________________________________
McKenzie Wark  http://www.mcs.mq.edu.au/~mwark
Guest Scholar, American Studies, New York University
"We no longer have origins we have terminals"

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