[ExI] The CC-PP game

[BillK]

I read that Citigroup has now been nationalized (in all but name) by
the US government.
And I have also realized that what is going on is a new financial game
called the CC-PP game.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonize_costs-privatize_profits_game>

Quote:
The Commonize Costs–Privatize Profits Game (or CC–PP Game) is a
concept developed by the ecologist Garrett Hardin to describe a "game"
(in the game theory sense) widely played in matters of resource
allocation. The concept is a formalism of the closely related
phenomenon known as the Tragedy of the commons.
Players of the CC–PP Game aim to commonize the costs (or
externalities) generated by their activities across the wider
community, while privatizing all profits (financial or otherwise) to
themselves.
In political discourse, the flow of financial resources within society
has been described in similar terms, such as privatizing profits and
socializing losses.
-------------------

So it works like this:  the rich and greedy shout freedom and liberty
so they get freedom from regulation, so they can amass even more
wealth. And when they go too far and the pyramid game eventually
collapses, they can also demand that the losses get shared out among
everybody else (but they still get to keep the wealth they accumulated
on the way up).

There are now billions of taxpayers money available to help the
millionaire bankers. But no billions for a socialized health system or
poverty programs for the destitute, or rebuilding New Orleans, etc.

Is this total insanity? Or is the whole country now being run for the
benefit of a very few people who are already fabulously wealthy?


BillK