"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"
-- Hamlet Act 1, Scene 4 (here for a synopsis)

Why quote Hamlet?  Today marked the start of public trading in Zynga, a (or *the*) Facebook gaming company.  To the consternation of some, it's falling as I write from the IPO price.  You can read the links on the page for further explanation.

But, being something of a Luddite techy (an oxymoron in the manner of "happily married") and Keynesian thinker, I've been dismayed over the last decade or so watching the laissez faire driven destruction of the American economy at the hands of money centered capitalism.  Krugman, in today's column, deals once again with the topic, echoing what I said earlier in Part 16 of Dee Feat:  inflation ain't happenin'.  Now, why it's not happenin' doesn't get explained, for some reason.  It's that the money is going into corporate coffers, not middle class consumers.  The cash will stay there, and so long as it does, there'll be no growth or inflation.  Fat Man likes it that way.

Back to Zynga.  The company is another in a long line of unproductive siphons of capital, following LinkedIn and Groupon and the rest.  As an aside, it was reported that FedEx is doing a booming business due to internet shopping.  So let's see:  Main Street gets shut down, and we burn hydrocarbons an order of magnitude more just so little Kimmey can have her Barbie?  In no rational economy would this make sense.  Zynga is just another private sector redistribution scheme; "money for nothing and the chicks are free".