I Like My Cigar

I will never understand the fascination with "liking" something. It all reminds me of what Groucho told a guy with a big family: "I like my cigar too but I take it out once in a while!" 

It's an abstraction from consumption, like derivatives abstract from investment. In a situation of chronic overproduction capitalism responds by pushing both investment and consumption into more distant orbits, further removed from reality. Consumption is anaemic due to falling wages so capital becomes obsessed with inclination, the possibility that someone somewhere might someday be able to take out a loan to actually buy something. Meantime, because it must track something with numbers, it counts wishes. With enough data it can actually match up the cloud of wishes to commodities.  What it cannot predict is actual consumption. That leaves an overhang of desire matching the over extension of the credit system. Crash. But the crash is still hidden. So folks go merrily along investing in their dream avatar. The more they are impoverished in reality the more they invest in dreams. Well enough of that. I need to get back to Facebook.