[ExI] How slow is capitalism?

[Eugen Leitl]

On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 02:15:27PM -0400, Mike Dougherty wrote:

> This makes me think of a farmer watching a horse race... The
> spectators cheer for their favorites and people win/lose tons of money
> on the outcome of each race - yet the farmer sees none of that because
> he's imagining which horse would be best for plowing his field.  (for
> the sake of this example we'll forget about the fact that probably
> none of the race horses would be ideal for farm work, this is mostly a
> visualization of rhetoric and not strictly to scale)

Your image is uncannily correct. This is a gamble, dumb
people are throwing money around, the organizer of the
races always win, and most of the time crooks run the
show.

At least with the races, you've got some socializing, 
primate dominance display (did you see her dressss???) and
people are having a good time in general. Quants/traders...
not so much.

You know what? Fuck Wall Street. I'm off to see the races.

As I went down to Galway Town
To seek for recreation
On the seventeenth of August
Me mind being elevated
There were passengers assembled
With their tickets at the station
And me eyes began to dazzle
And they off to see the races

With me wack fol the do fol
The diddle idle day

There were passengers from Limerick
And passengers from Nenagh
The boys of Connemara
And the Clare unmarried maiden
There were people from Cork City
Who were loyal, true and faithful
Who brought home the Fenian prisoners
>From dying in foreign nations

And it's there you'll see the pipers
And the fiddlers competing
And the sporting wheel of fortune
And the four and twenty quarters
And there's others without scruple
Pelting wattles at poor Maggie
And her father well contented
And he gazing at his daughter

And it's there you'll see the jockeys
And they mounted on so stably
The pink, the blue, the orange, and green
The colors of our nation
The time it came for starting
All the horses seemed impatient
Their feet they hardly touched the ground
The speed was so amazing!

There was half a million people there
Of all denominations
The Catholic, the Protestant, the Jew, the Presbyterian
Yet there was no animosity
No matter what persuasion
But failte hospitality
Inducing fresh acquaintance