Hell Goes Soft (er)

A note on the new look of Sudden Debt.

Tiffany blue, baby blue.. call it whatever, the new design and colour palette of Sudden Debt is undoubtedly much "softer" than the previous harsh red and black, deliberately chosen over four years ago as a warning to the looming dangers of the credit bubble.  The blog not only sounded but even looked accusatory, as if Sudden Debt was the Spanish Inquisition and yours truly the Torquemada of Debt, committing heretical lenders and borrowers to burn in, well, Hell.

Since then the credit bubble has burst spectacularly and today there is not a soul on this planet who has not heard of sub-prime lending, credit derivatives, sovereign default probabilities, etc.  In other words, Sudden Debt has accomplished the mission of warning about, chronicling and lambasting the Permagrowth culture that was founded on ever-expanding credit and inflating asset prices.  To continue doing so would be akin to beating a dead horse, a function entirely foreign to my outlook and interests in life.

So, where do we go from here?  For one, I believe it is imperative to now make fun of  High Finance instead of continuing to accuse it of malfeasance.  The reason is as simple as Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.  Ridicule is an extremely potent weapon, when used judiciously.

To this end, here are a couple of classic clips from my favourite Brit comedy show, Monty Python's Flying Circus. Watch both, they are quite short.

The Spanish Inquisition, Part One

The Spanish Inquisition, Part Two

They no longer make stuff like this, unfortunately.  Today, we are more apt to shake our heads, shrug our shoulders apathetically and stay put.  May I point out that, in the end, it was ridicule that brought down Tricky Dicky?

A final note: an entire generation has grown up thinking that economics is all about predicting market behaviour.  Even very smart people take this view for granted, instead of pausing to ponder what the word economics actually means.  But then again, they don't think about what democracy means, either. In the age of economics as market analysis, we call it representative democracy, probably because it merely represents democracy instead of being the real thing.