Re: [LAU] OT: Italian University

On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 01:08:01PM +0100, Philipp ??berbacher wrote: It is indeed a contest, a competition. In the USA, the relatively small group of people who have seen this coming (i.e. anti-WTO, anti-globalization protesters) have been calling it "the race to the bottom" for a few decades. The contest is quite simple: people "compete" for the largesse of wealthy corporations. We have to "compete" by cutting wages, eliminating taxes on the rich and/or corporations, decimating government services, "privatizing" everything, slashing regulations, and ceding more and more power to corrupt businesses. It is a mad, diabolical perversion of capitalism, operating in reverse, and turning Adam Smith upon his head: instead of businesses competing in order to provide better services and products to people, it is people competing in order to provide better servitude and slavery to businesses. Ingenious, actually, in its destructiveness, much like a well-written virus. For those of us who grew up at the beginning of this nightmare-- in the USA and UK under Reagan and Thatcher-- this is nothing new. To the rest of the world, we're sorry that this plague is spreading so rapidly and infecting you too. Welcome to our world. OK, that's enough politics for me. It deeply saddens me that the few remaining beacons of hope that I've held are now too flickering and darkening. -ken