What has value and what doesn't

Fascinating film about how MW took on the whole Economics establishment and showed that by excluding from calculation all the unpaid work done, mainly by women, the picture one gets of a nation's economy is entirely distorted.

The Pursuit of Attention: Power and Ego in Everyday Life by Charles Derber

" Many people see nothing egoistic about everyday conversation. We're nice and civilized people, after all, and we revel in shooting linguistically charged sound waves at each other. Some of us never stop talking, we love it so much. Certainly we're just making innocent and polite chatter? For example, one person in a group mentions their new puppy, everyone swoons, and another person responds "when my dog was a puppy I had the worst time keeping him out of the basement." Yet another person responds, "we'd like to get a puppy but our condo association doesn't allow them." The initial speaker then says "we named him 'Fred'" and someone else adds "I've always wanted a dog named Boethius, but my husband doesn't like that name." Was that exchange just a smattering of idle small talk? A mere chewing of the air? On the surface, yes, but the whiplash revelations of "The Pursuit of Attention" add a shocking dimension to what most of us consider quotidian jibber jabber. "


As summed up by an Amazon reviewer.

I find those kind of conversations absolutely infuriating, unless they're with a 10 year old.


http://www.amazon.com/Pursuit-Attention-Power-Everyday-Life/dp/0195135490/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1

Dixit Abraham Lincoln

    

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong it's reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”