Saturday, April 9, 2016

Why Are So Many Hacks And Idiots Prepared To Give Billionaires A Pass?



















Even as the Neolib media whores and hacks at the editorial board of The Denver Post  (Apr. 7, p. 9A)  cackled about Bernie Sanders's'  "platitudes about the billionaire class" , that class is running roughshod over our political process even as it dramatically expands inequality. Case in point: The Koch brothers (both raised by a Nazi nanny, as a point of historical fact) who have already plowed nearly a half billion bucks into the 2016 election in an effort to buy off anyone they can.

Despite that, memes that Sanders is "off base" and in "fantasy land" prevail. But then one must ask: What is in it for those that circulate such claptrap? Well, most of their boards (like the WSJ) are stocked with the same billionaire interests. In the WSJ case by clones and drones working for Rupert Murdoch.  Meanwhile, other billionaires like Peter G. Peterson confabulate front groups like 'Fix the debt' and other imitations in an effort to drastically cut or eliminate "entitlements".

Currently the top TV show depicting these reptiles is 'Billions' on Showtime, It features Bobby 'Axe' Axelrod as the psychotic,  billionaire hedge fund manager of Axe Capital. Axelrod has no morals or qualms and believes, like most of these vermin, that  he' doing "god's service" for capitalism by taking out marginal enterprises (like 'Yum Time' - producer of one of his famous childhood treats, 'ding doodles'). Thousands will lose their jobs, but so what? Someone has to clean out the 'pipes'! This is a common element of the billionaire class zeitgeist, that they are in fact performing a needed service to clean out unproductive companies 'clogging'  the capitalist realm, so the rest of it can work expeditiously. And too many media hacks buy into this codswallop.

This has actually been put forward in the financial press, namely the WSJ article 'The Young and the Economically Clueless' (Feb. 20-21, p. 9A) wherein the author (Daniel J. Arbess) writes:

"Both Democrats and some Republicans keep blaming it all on 'Wall Street', Bernie Sanders' all purpose bogeyman. Don't they realize that the financial markets are the lubricant of the entire economy - that Wall Street's capacity to provide liquidity and to broker capital is the lifeblood of the American economy?"

He then goes on to lacerate millennials for their "unfamiliarity with socialist economics" when this turd can't even make distinctions between socialist forms, and also is embracing a capitalist system that is unsustainable.

He also has the temerity to ask: "As for Bernie Sanders, what is his excuse for revanchist economics?"

Well, because the economic mutation on offer enables the minority wealthy class to plunder from working men and women even as they seek to slice and cut what few benefits - like Medicaid and Social Security - that remain, Hence, it was more than gratifying to behold an outspoken young woman in a Gainesville, FL 'Starbucks'  reaming out the maggot Florida guv Rick Scott for slicing her Medicaid-Obamacare benefits.  The young lady was fierce, eloquent and the take spot on, see e.g.

http://www.abcactionnews.com/news/state/video-woman-confronts-rick-scott-in-starbucks

This is the same slimeball, who when he was head of Columbia HCA,  relentlessly milked billions out of Medicare.

Back to the tripe that the billionaires are doing us all favors by "spreading liquidity" . Hardly, because the manner in which they do it wreaks more havoc than positive benefits  on Main Street- that's why 3 million in the middle class are being converted to plebes every year.

And parsing the line between fact and fiction, a la Bobby Axelrod? According to a recent TIME review ('Billions Continues to Reveal What's Really Wrong With Wall Street' by Rana Forhoohar, April 4, p. 21), well:

"Unfortunately, the real life drama of Main Street's subordination to Wall Street is getting worse. Experts including Adair Turner, the former head of financial regulation in the UK, estimates that only about 15 percent of all capital flows within America's financial system end up making their way into the real economy. The rest of that money just rotates around the high priced microcosm - enriching the 1 percent as they buy and sell existing assets to one another, bidding up their value while failing to invest in research, products, jobs or innovation".

And Axe? He's more like the typical hedge funder than not. As Forhoohar puts it, Wall Street's money men are more invested in "ding doodle -style deals than making long term investments".  Adding:

"The worry is that our market system has become like the snake that devours its own tail, That's certainly the story that 'Billions' tells'"

So much for the bullshit and bollocks that Sanders is living in la-la land and his supporters are "economically clueless". They are more clued in than the bloviating parade of financial hacks and the ubiquitous billionaire defenders who realize they are under attack for the first time in decades (actually since JFK) and don't like it one bit.

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