Ian,
Really, you can't back down now... you were the one who introduced the piece
by referring to "reconstruction", after all.
In any case, let's look at what Maurer himself says: since he thinks
finance "discourse" is not understandable on its own terms -
"Securitization, thus, is not obvious or self-evident" - he is here to tell
us what is really going on - and THAT is the fundamental conceit behind all
of deconstructionism, postmodernism, etc. That somehow there really is
something behind the wizard's curtain.
Well, as someone who spent a little time actually working in and around
securities, I can tell you that "securitization" IS obvious and self-evident
to anyone who spends the time acquiring the skillset to understand it - just
like any other field of knowledge.
Nothing controversial in that, I should hope. The problem here is that
Maurer clearly has not taken even the time that a non-securities
professional needs to take to speak intelligently about the very real
problems associated with fictitious capital. And that leads to his confusion
of the term securitization with the completely different concept of a
security interest.
Of course, there is the possibility that he is purposely trying to make this
all sound far more magical and unapproachable than it really is....but I
really don't want to go down that road.
Stephen F. Diamond
School of Law
Santa Clara University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
