The New Robber Barons and the Self Destruction of the 1%, the Cynic and Barack Obama, November 7th and the future of the GOP, and Joe Biden was right to laugh.
Welcome to the Daily Sausage.
We’re starting today’s Sausage off with a little history lesson. In the late 1890s, there came about a group of wealthy industrialists referred to as “robber barons”, due to the fact that they had built their businesses through questionable means and in the process of doing so had created a new de facto American aristocracy.
Prior to the advent of the robber barons, there had been industrial chaos in America. A billion small businesses, little regulation, incredibly unsafe working conditions, etc. The Robber Barons consolidated many of those businesses into massive companies like Standard Oil, Bethlehem Steel, Carnegie Steel, etc. that brought some semblance of order to markets that were completely out of control. However, more of than not, they did so through means that deliberately screwed both their competitors and their workers.
Most notable among the Robber Barons was their sense of philanthropy; Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie, Astor, Schwab, Vanderbilt… These men donated large portions of their fortunes to charitable causes like world peace, education, science and research, and a variety of other worthy endeavours.
Our modern Robber Barons are not quite so magnanimous.
We read last week about David Seigel, CEO of Westgate Resorts, who told his employees that if President Obama is reelected they’ll be fired, in so many words.
Over the weekend, Arther Allen, CEO of ASG Software Solutions, said that if Obama wins and his employees lose their jobs, they’ll have only themselves to blame.
There have been a lot of comparisons of the United States to the Weimar Republic circa 1937 or so. The truth is that the United States has much, much more in common with 14th century Venice.
You see, there is a temptation among the elites to pull up the ladder behind them, and cut off the rest of society from the resources that made them successful. This is wise in the short-term, but ultimately destructive in the long-term.
It wasn’t until the arrival of, ironically enough, a Republican by the name of Theodore Roosevelt that the power of the elites of the time, the original Robber Barons, were broken by President Roosevelt and Congress, the only force left powerful enough to break the trusts and to pull the ladder back down.
And so, that brings us to the present day, the Cynic and Barack Obama.
The question here is whether or not Barack Obama can dig deep and find the stones to take on the moneyed interests that are ruining this country. That means, first and foremost, breaking the back of the GOP, which is now a shambling, rotten, worm-ridden zombie party composed of the worst elements of the American body politic. After that, Obama needs to have a literal Jesus and the Moneychangers moment where he tosses the lobbyists from the halls of Congress. And finally, he needs to whip his party and the rest of Congress into voting for rules and regulations that ensure that such madness can never happen again.
The cynic in me says that won’t happen, because the dirty secret of Washington is that Democrats and Republicans alike benefit from the largesse of their corporate masters. The Democrats masters are just slightly more benevolent.
One way or another, the world will be an interesting place come November 7th.
Let’s assume, for a minute, that Mitt Romney wins the Presidency and in doing so brings the GOP into control of both houses of Congress. If you feel the need to vomit, please do so. It’s okay, I’ll wait.
Now that you’re done vomiting, what would that GOP look like? Welp, turns out it’ll look pretty much exactly like the Tea Party.
So, how did we get here? What did we do to deserve this?
Well, Ed from Gin and Tacos has a theory:
The basic problem with American politics is that our elected officials do (or try to do) what we want, and what we want is increasingly stupid.
I agree wholeheartedly. We ask much of the government, but collectively refuse to pay for it. It’s why we run national deficits.
Conservatives like to crow about how we need “a CEO in the White House” that can “run America like a business”, to which they mean “a singular leader that will ensure that American government is a profit generating enterprise.”
Well, if that’s the case, it looks like the GOP is down to Texas, Nebraska, Arkansas, and Indiana, while Democrats have California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Delaware. Sorry, other 34 states, but you guys are unprofitable and we’re gonna have to let you go.
The United States can’t be run like a business, nor should it be.
But all this really pales compared to the Romney/Ryan plan, which is comprised entirely of wishy thinking and starmaths. Moody’s chief economist says that the plan doesn’t work.
This isn’t anything new; economists have been saying for months that it doesn’t work. But it’s always good to have someone else pile on.
Finally, what does Matt Taibbi think? He thinks Joe Biden was right to laugh, and I agree.
