Monday, November 22, 2010

Low rent, real return

This article, subtitled Much of what investment bankers do is socially worthless is well worth the read.  As new and experimental music all too frequently gets placed in a similar category (heck, by- the-book Marxists will dismiss it as superstructure — and an insignificant fraction thereof, at that — so we're pretty much used to getting disrespect from all sides), it's a bit refreshing to see the captains (and admirals, and commodores) of finance in the light of their costs and benefits to society.  On balance, I think, new and experimental music comes out looking pretty good in comparison: we produce something real, if a perishable good — sound waves do dissipate — and our rent is, in real terms, cheap.  But that small investment in a musical good has proven potential, if very tiny, to provide returns for centuries.  Next time you join some friends to sing some Josquin, just think: Wall Street, which of your recent investments is going to be paying off like this in 500 years?   

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You could place "investment banking" and "composition" in the same set of "alchemistry", why not.

That would be one way - in a thousand, maybe - to look at it.

Alternatively, you could probably form the set "enemies of progress" with "investment banking" and, say, "terrorism".

It all depends on where you observe the situation from, your locus on the political spetrum.

For example, try typing the following three inputs:

- illusion
- government
- composition

in Google Sets

http://labs.google.com/sets

and see what you get.

Kraig Grady said...

Art at least provides a reason 'Why' to live in part or at least greater compared to the Bankers and Marxist (both are represented by BIS- btw) who can't even come up with a decent way to even 'How'.