Banking on a crisis

Second Life is commanding approximately 0% of my attention right now, what with the US elections reaching their climax (though that last Obama/McCain debate was far too even-tempered, and pretty dull) and the world financial system melting down before our very eyes.

Even a couple of weeks ago the idea that the UK government would be nationalising the banks, even partially, would have seemed like some sort of deluded socialist fantasy. Now there are plenty people saying that Brown and Darling haven’t gone far enough, and they should have taken the whole system into public ownership.

I have spent years of my life standing on cold street corners, giving out flyers expressing such Bolshevist sentiments, and, a lot of the time, meeting with general indifference. Now that I’m semi-retired from such activity, the message is becoming popular again. I should quit politics altogether; my ex-comrades would be in power within the week.