Corporate Socialism
I wish I was “too big to fail”. That’s what all the talking heads in Washington and on Wall Street are saying about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Collectively they hold $5 Trillion in mortgages. So what is one of the possible outcomes of their problems in the next few weeks? A government bailout! Never mind that it would raise our total government debt by 50%. Never mind that both firms are leveraged to the level of criminal misconduct.
This is what we call Corporate Socialism–the privatization of profit and the socialization of risk and misconduct. Both our current President and Vice President are experts at this since their fortunes are owed completely to corporate socialism. In Bush’s case, he was hired by Richard Rainwater to run the Texas Rangers with only one key job attribute: the ability to get the state to pay for the new baseball stadium. When Bush sold out to his buddy Tom Hicks (Clear Channel) he made $14 million on his $500,000 investment.
Dick Cheney is also a case study in the use of corporate socialism for private enrichment. As we have pointed out before, while Secretary of Defense, Cheney set up Halliburton and its KBR subsidiary in the military supply outsourcing business, and then went to work as Halliburton’s CEO. For two years work he earned $30.5 million.
Cheney and Bush only have 5 1/2 months left to continue raiding the treasury to remunerate their corporate supplicants who are floundering. Who else is “too big to fail”? Will it be Chrysler, Lehmann Brothers, General Motors or any number of troubled banks like Indy Mac that failed yesterday? How will they figure out a way to further enrich their patrons like Archer, Daniels, Midland, the big Ag firm that has been the biggest beneficiary of Ethanol and other crop subsidies from administrations of both parties?
When historians make that list of the most corrupt administrations in history, surely Bush-Cheney must rank right up there with Grant and Harding in the pantheon of exploitation.
It is imperative that we get the financial sector back to normal. What is “normal”? Michael Lewis (the “Liar’s Poker” dude) long ago succinctly called that one:
“The firm made money, and the broker made money. Two outa three ain’t bad.”
It is imperative that we get the financial sector back to normal. What is “normal”? Michael Lewis (the “Liar’s Poker” dude) long ago succinctly called that one:
“The firm made money, and the broker made money. Two outa three ain’t bad.”
[...] Comment Posting Standards ← Corporate Socialism [...]
[...] Comment Posting Standards ← Corporate Socialism [...]
Jon, who says that Bush and Cheney are leaving? Call me a cynic, but they’ve already shredded most of the Constitution, why not go all the way and declare a national emergency and martial law; say because the ‘war’ president decides that Iran must be attacked at all costs. Since oil then rockets up to $300 a barrel and gas rationing goes into effect and the economy collapses under the weight of all those ‘too big to fail’ corporate bailouts; don’t forget the food riots and gee, good thing Blackwater is here instead of the National Guard units which are loyal to the states and not mercenaries because all those Islamic terrorists (who someone ‘just’ slipped past the DHS) are now blowing things up in America and the curfew is for our own protection after all.
Paranoid? All those weird conspiracies about black helicopters and secret detention camps that everyone laughed at years ago? Doesn’t seem too funny anymore does it? Have you noticed how the Democrats and the so-called ‘left-wing’ media have fallen right in line behind Bush and Cheney? Why is that? Is there anyone out there besides a few brave congressmen and senators who are willing to stand up and tell the truth?
Jon, who says that Bush and Cheney are leaving? Call me a cynic, but they’ve already shredded most of the Constitution, why not go all the way and declare a national emergency and martial law; say because the ‘war’ president decides that Iran must be attacked at all costs. Since oil then rockets up to $300 a barrel and gas rationing goes into effect and the economy collapses under the weight of all those ‘too big to fail’ corporate bailouts; don’t forget the food riots and gee, good thing Blackwater is here instead of the National Guard units which are loyal to the states and not mercenaries because all those Islamic terrorists (who someone ‘just’ slipped past the DHS) are now blowing things up in America and the curfew is for our own protection after all.
Paranoid? All those weird conspiracies about black helicopters and secret detention camps that everyone laughed at years ago? Doesn’t seem too funny anymore does it? Have you noticed how the Democrats and the so-called ‘left-wing’ media have fallen right in line behind Bush and Cheney? Why is that? Is there anyone out there besides a few brave congressmen and senators who are willing to stand up and tell the truth?
@Brian – Zow. I almost posted a comment on here in the FISA amendments thread with the words “emergency” and “martial law” in it. Glad to know I’m not the only one who is thinking that the “October surprise” is going to be the suspension of the bill of rights.
@Brian – Zow. I almost posted a comment on here in the FISA amendments thread with the words “emergency” and “martial law” in it. Glad to know I’m not the only one who is thinking that the “October surprise” is going to be the suspension of the bill of rights.
Brian,
Gov’rs no longer have control over their state’s National Guard Members. One of the many fine pieces of legislation Congress has rubber stamped is one that allows the President to move the national guard wherever he wants it in an emergency, regardless of protests from state gov’rs.
Have you read Naomi Wolf’s The End of America? super disturbing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment
Brian,
Gov’rs no longer have control over their state’s National Guard Members. One of the many fine pieces of legislation Congress has rubber stamped is one that allows the President to move the national guard wherever he wants it in an emergency, regardless of protests from state gov’rs.
Have you read Naomi Wolf’s The End of America? super disturbing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment
‘Corporate Socialism’ is a fine phrase, throwing the hated-pejorative back at the enemy. Kind of like ‘Liberal Fascists,’ wouldn’t you say?
Really, we have only ourselves to blame. 95% of congress who want their jobs back, get them — that’s the re-election rate last I saw it. So those in congress know that we voters will approve them almost no-matter-what. What they DON’T know is who pays their campaigns, gives them parties, junkets, and other forms of support. The big corporations and their lobbying cartels do that, and those guys DON’T go on paying them no matter what they do. They make darned sure that the congressmen deliver or else no more money, parties, junkets, free airplane rides, etc.
If WE the citizens of the United States of America, cared enough to support an investigative, muck-raking press; if we paid money and attention to which representatives were getting money and favors from where, and what bills they were submitting at industry requests, and what bills they were voting for; and if we raised holy hell at even the appearance of improprieties and conflicts of influence, and voted the rascals out of office — THEN we would not have this state of affairs.
‘The price of liberty is eternal vigilance,’ right?
‘Never re-elect anyone,’ as Kinky Friedman put it. That principle alone would go a long way here.
But the best policy involves a lot of work on our parts — reading, thinking, understanding, and communicating. Like this blog, for which, Mr Taplin, I thank you.
It doesn’t help that our education system was designed to create obedient factory drones rather than creative, independent-minded citizens.
‘Corporate Socialism’ is a fine phrase, throwing the hated-pejorative back at the enemy. Kind of like ‘Liberal Fascists,’ wouldn’t you say?
Really, we have only ourselves to blame. 95% of congress who want their jobs back, get them — that’s the re-election rate last I saw it. So those in congress know that we voters will approve them almost no-matter-what. What they DON’T know is who pays their campaigns, gives them parties, junkets, and other forms of support. The big corporations and their lobbying cartels do that, and those guys DON’T go on paying them no matter what they do. They make darned sure that the congressmen deliver or else no more money, parties, junkets, free airplane rides, etc.
If WE the citizens of the United States of America, cared enough to support an investigative, muck-raking press; if we paid money and attention to which representatives were getting money and favors from where, and what bills they were submitting at industry requests, and what bills they were voting for; and if we raised holy hell at even the appearance of improprieties and conflicts of influence, and voted the rascals out of office — THEN we would not have this state of affairs.
‘The price of liberty is eternal vigilance,’ right?
‘Never re-elect anyone,’ as Kinky Friedman put it. That principle alone would go a long way here.
But the best policy involves a lot of work on our parts — reading, thinking, understanding, and communicating. Like this blog, for which, Mr Taplin, I thank you.
It doesn’t help that our education system was designed to create obedient factory drones rather than creative, independent-minded citizens.
Not really. Fascism (as I’ve said here before) was a form of violent, grassroots political activism that was characterized in its early phases by thug militias, intimidation, murder, kidnapping and arson. Its rhetoric was largely racist in the crudest terms (especially in Germany) and complained repeatedly that the native culture or Volk was being diluted, corrupted and emasculated by “outsiders”, and again, the language was generally very crude and visceral. A repeated theme was that followers should constantly ignore, frustrate or subvert laws, courts and police. Until the fascists were in power, in which case doing so got you “disappeared.”
You can hang the label of “fascism” on almost anything, and almost anything you can imagine has had the label hung on it, but neither Richard Nixon nor Bill Clinton were fascists unless you’re using a definition of “whatever I don’t like.”
Socialism is collectivization of capital or resources. If nationalized health care is frequently derided as “socialism” because everybody pays the government to provide it, I don’t know how you can fail to use socialism to describe a private corporation that keeps all of its profits (minus taxes) when things are going well, uses its money to lobby Congress to cut regulations or legislate to its benefit, but gets massive government bailouts (taxpayer dollars) whenever things go wrong.
It’s a hell of a lot more accurate to call a bailout of Fannie Mae corporate socialism than it is to call the Clinton administration an era of liberal fascism.
The “Earth is Flat” types want to put everything, absolutely everything, up for sale, but they find that their absolute, total, no-exceptions free market principles aren’t so appealing when it means they may actually lose a lot of money as a result of their reckless policies.
Is it our fault? It’s easy to say, “We get the government we deserve,” and there’s at least some truth in it. On the other hand, our government has been playing the “you don’t need to know game” increasingly over the past 25 years, and especially in the last 8, they’ve ramped that up about a thousand percent. There are still a lot of us who want to know what’s going on, and don’t like what we suspect is going on.
Then Karl Rove, as a single example, drops his trousers and moons Congress.
I personally don’t hold myself responsible for that.
But then I recently went to meet my new Congressman, and made it clear in my brief time talking with him that I was at least moderately aware of the issues, and how he’d been voting, and I impressed him that I always follow the voting records of my representatives, and that I always vote. That’s really not much to offer as a citizen, but it puts me way out in front of the herd.
Not really. Fascism (as I’ve said here before) was a form of violent, grassroots political activism that was characterized in its early phases by thug militias, intimidation, murder, kidnapping and arson. Its rhetoric was largely racist in the crudest terms (especially in Germany) and complained repeatedly that the native culture or Volk was being diluted, corrupted and emasculated by “outsiders”, and again, the language was generally very crude and visceral. A repeated theme was that followers should constantly ignore, frustrate or subvert laws, courts and police. Until the fascists were in power, in which case doing so got you “disappeared.”
You can hang the label of “fascism” on almost anything, and almost anything you can imagine has had the label hung on it, but neither Richard Nixon nor Bill Clinton were fascists unless you’re using a definition of “whatever I don’t like.”
Socialism is collectivization of capital or resources. If nationalized health care is frequently derided as “socialism” because everybody pays the government to provide it, I don’t know how you can fail to use socialism to describe a private corporation that keeps all of its profits (minus taxes) when things are going well, uses its money to lobby Congress to cut regulations or legislate to its benefit, but gets massive government bailouts (taxpayer dollars) whenever things go wrong.
It’s a hell of a lot more accurate to call a bailout of Fannie Mae corporate socialism than it is to call the Clinton administration an era of liberal fascism.
The “Earth is Flat” types want to put everything, absolutely everything, up for sale, but they find that their absolute, total, no-exceptions free market principles aren’t so appealing when it means they may actually lose a lot of money as a result of their reckless policies.
Is it our fault? It’s easy to say, “We get the government we deserve,” and there’s at least some truth in it. On the other hand, our government has been playing the “you don’t need to know game” increasingly over the past 25 years, and especially in the last 8, they’ve ramped that up about a thousand percent. There are still a lot of us who want to know what’s going on, and don’t like what we suspect is going on.
Then Karl Rove, as a single example, drops his trousers and moons Congress.
I personally don’t hold myself responsible for that.
But then I recently went to meet my new Congressman, and made it clear in my brief time talking with him that I was at least moderately aware of the issues, and how he’d been voting, and I impressed him that I always follow the voting records of my representatives, and that I always vote. That’s really not much to offer as a citizen, but it puts me way out in front of the herd.
[...] step in with no such conditions. WTF. It sounds like Phil Gramm is already running the Treasury and corporate socialism is in the [...]
[...] step in with no such conditions. WTF. It sounds like Phil Gramm is already running the Treasury and corporate socialism is in the [...]
We can blame Bush and Cheney — and lord knows I do for many, many, many things — but in fact it was Johnson who privatized Mae and Mac all those years ago. He wanted the assets and liabilities off the gov’t books so they wouldn’t slow down his then funding problem: a foreign war, in Viet Nam.
We can blame Bush and Cheney — and lord knows I do for many, many, many things — but in fact it was Johnson who privatized Mae and Mac all those years ago. He wanted the assets and liabilities off the gov’t books so they wouldn’t slow down his then funding problem: a foreign war, in Viet Nam.
Agreed. The risks inherent in a privately-owned company chartered by the fed with an implicit lick-and-a-promise of government backing goes way back. It’s been a ticking time bomb for decades.
On the other hand, the idiotic lending of hundreds of thousands of dollars at subprime rates to people with zero collateral in a cartoonishly overheated real estate market is quite a bit more recent.
Agreed. The risks inherent in a privately-owned company chartered by the fed with an implicit lick-and-a-promise of government backing goes way back. It’s been a ticking time bomb for decades.
On the other hand, the idiotic lending of hundreds of thousands of dollars at subprime rates to people with zero collateral in a cartoonishly overheated real estate market is quite a bit more recent.
Pond, Long and powerful thread way back in this blog re: the power of gerrymandering districts. The reelection rate you cite is less voter stupidity, and more very well thought out social engineering.
Taking back the government requires addressing that practice, and getting some sort of conflict of interest LAW with teeth that all legislative bodies have to abide by.
Pond, Long and powerful thread way back in this blog re: the power of gerrymandering districts. The reelection rate you cite is less voter stupidity, and more very well thought out social engineering.
Taking back the government requires addressing that practice, and getting some sort of conflict of interest LAW with teeth that all legislative bodies have to abide by.
[...] been reading, and thinking about the recent banking crisis and I don’t think that corporate socialism is the answer. I’ve come up with some thoughts that I think would stem the crisis and [...]
[...] been reading, and thinking about the recent banking crisis and I don’t think that corporate socialism is the answer. I’ve come up with some thoughts that I think would stem the crisis and [...]