Category Archives: Plutocracy

How Dem Betrayal Brought Us Trump

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Of all people, David Brooks, in a confession, does a good job or explaining Trumpism in Voters to Elites: Do You See Me Now? Read it all, but this about moving manufacturing out of the country,

We embraced a free trade policy that moved industrial jobs to low-cost countries overseas so that we could focus our energies on knowledge economy enterprises run by people with advanced degrees. The financial and consulting sector mushroomed while manufacturing employment shriveled.

In a word, “NAFTA,” which is the shorthand codeword for “markets over democracy” neoliberal policies that drove everything upward to the wealthy. Jobs went away, social services dried up and people were left on their own, infrastructure crumbled, entire regions were devastated.

I wrote this in 2010, and I think it describes why we have Trumpism:

As you drive from town to town in Michigan and Ohio you see one after another a ring of the “big box” stores and national chain stores around each city. You also see the “brownfields” of rusted-out, closed factories, empty, falling-down buildings. Then you go to the downtown and you see boarded up houses, empty storefronts, deteriorating and deteriorated communities, idle people standing on corners. As you drive into these towns you can just see what is happening in a nutshell.

You used to hear about how Wal-Mart was predatory, how it would show up in an area and after a while the downtowns would dry up, local business-owners would go broke, local business employees would be laid off, and the local people would have to work for low wages at Wal-Mart, while the region’s spending money would go off to the wealthy few who run these things.

Well a juicy story of devastation like that one gets around, and there are those who hear it and say, “Hey, that’s a great idea, I wanna get me some of that.” So the Wal-Mart business model has taken off and now there are any number of these vultures, ringing the cities and towns around the country, so often private-equity owned. They are draining away the lifeblood of the downtowns, fighting off the unions to keep wages down, even demanding tax breaks to move in and “create jobs.” You see all the same stores circling every town now, running all of the local and regional businesses unto the ground.

Here are some pictures from the inner Lorain area but you see it all around: (click for large)
P1000784P1000802 P1000791P1000795P1000789P1000787

Democracy Was Lost Decades Ago

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1) Trump got 2 million fewer votes than 2020. This election turned on the 12 million who voted for Biden in 2020 but not Harris. I guess there’s historical value in finding out why they didn’t vote. Gaza was clearly one factor in this. I’m not saying it was all Gaza but Michigan would have gone to Harris except for Gaza. This is very clear when you look at Michigan’s vote count, Fewer than 100,000 votes would have given Michigan to Harris. But this doesn’t account for the 12 million nationwide.

2) As I wrote, this was inevitable Dems have been fighting a holding action for decades, and the dam broke. I wrote about how this loss is the culmination of the long-term, strategic, billionaire/corporate-funded “Conservative Movement” plan that has played out since the 70s. The Master Plan podcast does an excellent job of showing how this played out. If you want to know what has happened, please listen to this podcast. You can’t fight that with short-term efforts at election time. The country was lost long before this election.

3) I think if there is a root of this loss during the Biden admin it was that big Build Back Better bill was split in half, with the social spending split from the infrastructure part. The Chamber of Commerce wanted the infrastructure part. Biden promised not to allow that part to pass without the other part. They passed the first part. Manchin/Sinema worked with the right to kill the social spending. Progressives refused to vote for one but not the other, then corporate Dems used that as a cudgel to defeat progressives.

That social spending was what would have made people FEEL that the economy was working for them. That’s why the Chamber got it knocked out of the bill.

4) But really it is #2, which many of us “dirty hippies” have been warning about since the early 2000s at least, trying to get ANYONE to set up a counter-effort. Democracy Alliance was an attempt…

5) I do not see a way to overcome this. The world has entered a new era of oligarchal control. Democracy was defeated some time ago. Just look at all the studies showing that literally nothing has been passed in the US without the support of the wealthy, regardless of population support.

6) If it is as bad as we think the “blue” states will have to decide their own way forward apart from the rest of the country. California and others should become countries and try to fight off what is happening.

The Era Of The Oligarchs

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We are seeing the dawning of the age of oligarchic control in the US and worldwide. It is a new form of feudalism emerging.

Billionaires

Let me tell you about the billionaires. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy whatever they want, and it does something to them. – F Scott Johnson

The neoliberalism propaganda scheme enabled the creation of a billionaire class. People don’t understand how much money a billion is. If, like most of us, you made a million dollars a year it would take you 1,000 years for that to add up to a billion.

Imagine becoming a billionaire. Imagine reaching the pinnacle of society! The dream. The ideal.

But also, imagine the disappointment. You’re still just a human being!

There’s a scene in The Borgias where Jeremy Irons is finally crowned Pope. They put the hat on his head, he waits, but doesn’t hear God’s voice! Imagine the disappointment. All that work, all that scheming, all those people left behind ruined or dead on the floor…

Imagine the disappointment of becoming a billionaire (or even only achieving $8 or 900,000,000) and NOTHING HAPPENS. (We’ve seen how the tech bros think they should be immortal and then use their money to try to get there.)

They really thought there’d be something more. Some award, some elevation.

One thing is for sure, though. They are better than regular people and they know it. It’s the entire point of society! They’ve reached the top. They’re smarter. They deserve what they have. And more than anything they deserve more.

Elevation. They deserve elevation.

When you are that special, why should regular people be able to tell you what they can and cannot do? Rules? We don’t need no stinkin’ RULES? Your puny nations aren’t going to constrain US. We can sacrifice 14-year-old virgins on our yachts and private islands any time we want and who are you to tell us we can’t!

Democracy? The herd? The mob? Laws? You’re going to tell US what to do? You can take your democracies … and we’re going to help get them out of our way!

They’re going to put a stop to that. And there’s a path. Modern politicians exist for one thing: money. The oligarchs have it. And so “politics” (can you even call it that anymore?) has morphed to being all about the billionaires – the oligarchs. Other donors (a measly million?) don’t even register when they’re writing checks for $125 million. (Or millions of pounds, pesos, whatever.)

The Plan

I can just picture the small, elite group gatherings. The servants bringing rare beverages and delicacies. The smirking consultants with their Powerpoint presentations about how to use social media to get people to do anything you want them to do. And if you own the information outlets, you TELL them what the “news” is. The people who count the votes control the outcome. You choose your voters. Etc.

Once you control the “news” outlets that “news” becomes about who to love, who to fear, and the latest “other” to hate. (Feeding them fear and giving them an “other” is as old as the hills.) And this year you’re telling them that their problem is migrants. (It works. It really works.)

Worldwide

The oligarch takeover is worldwide. This is Saudi money (that helped Musk buy Twitter) and Russian oligarch money (supplying strategy and the majority of the disinfo – and helped Musk buy Twitter) and Diddy/misogyny/pervert money (helped Musk buy Twitter) (and plenty of people in the Epstein and similar tapes) and Chinese billionaire money and tech bro billionaire money and … They already have Argentina and Hungary and Israel and new footholds in Austria and are adding so many others to their collection.

You’re With Us Or Against Us

There’s a powerful factor at work. You can see it. It is intimidation.

How many prominent Americans have you seen change their position from anti-Trump to pro-Trump in the last few years? People firmly against Trump and MAGA are suddenly supporters. Clearly they have been presented with a choice. “We’re going for it and we’re going to have the power and we’re going to use it. When that happens you either helped us or you are our enemy and you know what will happen to you and your family.” So you make a choice.

You can see it all around.

Public Investment Is The Way Forward For The UK

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This post originally appeared at Imagine Democracy.

The UK has ended an experiment in “conservative” governance. Backed by private investors, the government withdrew support for public services, public investment, public everything. They pretended “private” investment would pick up the slack. Instead and of course the wealthy staged a “bust-out” of the country. “A fraud tactic, commonly used in the organized crime world, wherein a business’ assets and lines of credit are exploited and exhausted to the point of insolvency.”

The privatized water companies are a good example of how the country was managed under conservative governance. Public assets were turned over the private “investors.” The “investors” borrowed heavily with those assets and their income stream as collateral. They paid themselves handsomely with minimal investment in maintenance and capacity. Eventually there was insufficient water supply to support increasing housing stock and raw sewage was being dumped into the country’s rivers. Of course there was no government enforcement of rules that would have prevented this – or prevented the resulting pollution. That would be labeled “interference” in the private sector.

Private investment does not provide public returns. The only interests of private investors is private return.

The Only Way Forward For UK Governance Is Public Investment

The way forward for UK governance is public investment in infrastructure, education, healthcare, services, law enforcement, addressing inequality. Investment.

Over time public investment will result in a booming economy and a prosperous public. It always does, everywhere. Look at the countries that follow this formula. The infrastructure is maintained and modern; education and healthcare are first-class, the economies prosper. The people are more equal, happier and prosperous.

Take all the propaganda labels (socialism, capitalism, neoliberalism, etc) out of this equation and look at it for what it is. PUBLIC investment pays off for the PUBLIC. Private investment only pays the already-wealthy private investors.

For The Many, Not The Few

Investment pays dividends down the road. Let the public collect those dividends.

Capitalism And Privatization

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On the benefits of privatization – turning public assets over to the “private sector”:

Capitalism – “the private sector” – does not invest in the pubic interest. That is not what it is for. It exists to enrich the few “owners,” and even that only in the short term.

Everything else is propaganda to convince the public to let them get away with that.

How Free Markets Work

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“Neoliberalism” is the idea that markets are better at making decisions than democracy.

If it doesn’t show up click here.
@moreperfectunion

@Jessica Burbank interrogates what type of economy the US really has. #union #unionworkers #workersrights #labor #labormovement #workingconditions #corporategreed #economy #useconomy #freemarket #plannedeconomy #banks

♬ original sound – More Perfect Union

Commercial for BIG MONEY (Video)

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Big Money: It’s unregulated, gathers by the billions, causes inaction on the climate crisis, bank collapses, and an unaffordable life for billions of people. It sells itself, but now it has its own commercial.

Raise a toast to what made it all possible.

A Way To Understand What Went Wrong With The US

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Society wants cars/antibiotics/furniture/houses/etc but doesn’t want to make them ourselves through our government.

In order to accomplish functions like these that government wants accomplished but doesn’t want to do itself, government “contracts out” those functions. Corporations are those contracts. Corporations facilitate aggregation and manage of resources (huge sums, labor, etc) that are beyond the scope of individuals. We “contract out” through corporate charters to get these things done for us.

When You Look At It This Way

When you look at it this way — that government is the way all of society’s functions are managed(of course it is) and that corporations & the “private sector” are just “contracting out” some government functions — it gives people a way to take back the power in their own thinking. Who is the boss of who? How should corporations be regulated? Who should be regulating them? Etc.

Where Things Went Wrong

Here is where we went wrong. Executives at corporations are allowed to use corporate funds to influence society and pay politicians to allow things that enrich those executives personally.

Everything else we see happening flows from that.

Corruption And Consequences

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This post originally appeared at Government Cheese – “Chronicling the collapse of democracy“

Silicon Valley Bank fails…

Corruption allowed the finance industry to operate outside of sensible government oversight, even as the world has experienced the consequences of this over and over again. So here in Silicon Valley and around the world, tech employees are waiting to find out if they’ll get their paychecks or get laid off next week. The world is wondering if contagion will spread that fear. Again. (Last time, because of corruption, not one banker type was held accountable. Not one.)

Also here in Silicon Valley it is raining harder than almost ever – except for a couple weeks ago. Flooding everywhere. I mean, torrential, incredible rain pouring down right now. This is because corruption has caused governments to allow the industry causing this to keep putting more and more carbon into the air even as we all know what the consequences will be.

The news lately has been about train derailments devastating localities. This happens because corruption allows wealthy rail-owners to keep governments from making them operate safely.

Inequality is now completely out-of-control. 60% of Americans now live paycheck-to-paycheck, not even able to raise $500 to cover an emergency like a car breakdown. The government doesn’t raise the minimum wage or otherwise address this because of obvious corruption. Million upon millions are spent convincing these people to blame government for this and vote for those backed by that money, and abolish democracy. “I am your retribution.”

The Supreme Court “rules” that this is all OK. Any amount of secret money is allowed to influence elections. People trying to fix this face millions of dollars spent smearing them in LOCAL elections. This Supreme Court we have is the way it is because of corrupt money spent to put them there.

Is there a common theme here?

What Happened At Southwest Airlines Is What Is Happening To Every American Company

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Everyone please read this Facebook post “from inside Southwest.” It is spot on. It describes how the meltdown happened because the company had been stripped for two decades by executives looking for short-term profits at the expense of the company.

What it describes is not just happening at this airline, though, and not just at airlines. This is what has been happening at HOW MANY companies for a long time! But more than that, it is of a piece with what has been happening to our democracy.

All the incentives are for squeezing everything out of a company to get the appearance of profit THIS QUARTER to get the STOCK PRICE UP to get the EXECUTIVE QUARTERLY BONUS and it is all at the expense of everything else – the customers (obviously) , the suppliers, the employees, and the future of the companies.

Our government is supposed to oversee the way companies operate. They operate under RULES set up by our government.

Rather than get into the specifics of those rules, ask yourself if a government operating in the interests of the people of the country and the long-term good of the companies of the country would allow what we are seeing at SWA and so many other companies to continue? Of course not!!!
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A Game As Old As Wealth

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This post originated at Imagine Democracy. If you follow all the links, it pieces together.

Over at sister-site Government Cheese, a discussion of capitalism, propaganda and how a few wealthy people keep things under control

Capitalism literally means that the people with wealth make the investment decisions for society & get the return on investment, and the broad public don’t.

All the rest is just propaganda. Capitalism has nothing to do with “markets” or “freedom” or any of the rest.

It’s really so simple. It’s how a few people maintain control of society for their own benefit and it’s been this way for thousands of year, under different labels. It’s what a monarchy is. The King and his buddies control the wealth. “WE should have this and you should not and here’s why.”

It’s why the United States was such a breakthrough. WE THE PEOPLE will decide what’s best for us, not you. Government of, by and for THE PEOPLE. Not the elites, the wealthy, the aristocrats, the priesthood, the monarchy, the warlord, whatever label put on the ruling wealthy. A country run for the benefit of the people in the country. Whatever label we put on that – democracy, socialism, whatever.

That’s all. All the rest is just propaganda.

Read Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in the context of the monarchies of Europe just salivating waiting for “the Union” – the experiment in democracy – fail so they can get the world back where they want it.

Twitter And America’s Billionaire Problem

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A democracy would never let this happen.

Twitter is the de facto town square, information source here and in much of the world. This is because of the “network effect.” Everyone has to be there because everyone else is. It doesn’t work any other way. Facebook is that for connecting with friends and relatives.

That’s what a public utility is.

Our government used to recognize and regulate that. The telephone system required the network effect in order to work. That could be only one. So the government regulated it.

We all know the reason the government doesn’t regulate now is because it is captured by vested interests.

This is what happens when our “system” is run at the whim of billionaires and petrostates. $44 billion (44 thousand million) is actually not that much money to Musk and the Saudis.