jangbones 
When is the last time American policy was predominantly driven by intellectuals and not by the economic elite?
If you enjoyed this video, Glenn Greenwald interviewed Chris Hayes about his book "Twilight of the Elites" and it is fucking mindbending;
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/01/chris_hayes_on_elite_failure/
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deadpan I listened to that while I was at work!
It was really depressing!
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Old_Zircon Incidentally, the definitive case against meritocracies is the SomethingAwful forums.
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Old_Zircon This interview is excellent, thanks for posting it.
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jangbones Glad you liked that interview. Regardless of affiliation, Hayes is a free thinker, and he's obviously done his homework on a complex and slippery subject.
Zircon, Hayes' excellent point about the failure of meritocracies was one of my favorite (if chilling) points he made, and your comparison sums it up elegantly.
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Vaidency
Our descendants will one day look back on this era when our society clearly valued speculators at a higher level than researchers and craftsmen and wonder how we ever allowed it to happen.
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Callamon
Make sure you watch the second half.
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craptacular
i don't buy the argument that speculators are evil because they don't produce anything. sure, their tax rate could/should be higher, but they're not evil just because they don't produce goods or "productively contribute" to society.
still, loves me some angry jewish economist talk
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jangbones Too much speculation is evil. Speculation without accompanying risk is evil. Enitre trillion dollar sectors of a nations economy completely built on speculation is evil. Speculation without punishment for failure is evil.
So, speculation isn't evil, but speculation in the American economy in the last 20-25 years or so definitely fucking qualifies.
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memedumpster
Doomed.
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