First a political aside: is anyone else wondering about the absence of Paul Ryan from GOP's nomination circus? Ryan (R-Wis.) is House Ways and Means Chairman and one of the most powerful legislators in America. He was also his party’s 2012 vice presidential nominee, significant since the Republican Party's normal rhythm is to give the presidential nomination to the Next Guy... whose "turn it is"... either whoever came in second last time, or else the VP nominee. Yet Ryan dropped from the national radar.
A fact highlighted by John Boehner's sudden departure as Speaker of the House, second in line to inherit any vacated presidency. Ryan declined Boehner’s job. So... what's up? I doubt any "skeleton in the closet" hypothesis. He's still young -- in his forties with small kids... with more chances on the horizon. Moreover, as unambiguously one of the smartest living Republicans, Ryan may have rightfully seen himself as a poor fit for today's GOP frenzy-asylum -- in which all compete by pushing the envelope of craziness. Too much Barry Goldwater, too little Savanarola or Jefferson Davis or Nehemia Scudder or carnival barker to fit in with this crowd.
Perhaps Ryan sees his "turn" in 2020... when (we can all pray) the madness abates a bit.
In fact, today let's now turn and look at some other conservatives who want no part of lunacy. Who see civilization as something good for them, maybe worth compromising for.
== Some of the "trillies" are smart enough to see self-interest ==
Did you see first this in Existence? Some of the smarter members of our world oligarchy are starting to worry about torches, pitchforks and tumbrels -- tentatively discussing how to save their own skins from revolution.
In a New York Times Op-Ed, former marketing conglomerate CEO Peter Georgescu writes: Capitalists Arise: We Need To Deal with Income Inequality. Joined by his friend Ken Langone, founder of Home Depot, Georgescu warns his fellow 0.01 percenters that “[w]e are creating a caste system from which it’s almost impossible to escape.” The column raises the specter of “major social unrest” if inequality is not addressed. In June, Cartier chief Johann Rupert — worth an estimated $7.5 billion — delivered the same message to his wealthy colleagues, telling them that the intensifying inequality and what it portends “keeps me awake at night.” He told his fellow elites that “We are destroying the middle classes at this stage and it will affect us.”
A fact highlighted by John Boehner's sudden departure as Speaker of the House, second in line to inherit any vacated presidency. Ryan declined Boehner’s job. So... what's up? I doubt any "skeleton in the closet" hypothesis. He's still young -- in his forties with small kids... with more chances on the horizon. Moreover, as unambiguously one of the smartest living Republicans, Ryan may have rightfully seen himself as a poor fit for today's GOP frenzy-asylum -- in which all compete by pushing the envelope of craziness. Too much Barry Goldwater, too little Savanarola or Jefferson Davis or Nehemia Scudder or carnival barker to fit in with this crowd.
Perhaps Ryan sees his "turn" in 2020... when (we can all pray) the madness abates a bit.
In fact, today let's now turn and look at some other conservatives who want no part of lunacy. Who see civilization as something good for them, maybe worth compromising for.
== Some of the "trillies" are smart enough to see self-interest ==
Did you see first this in Existence? Some of the smarter members of our world oligarchy are starting to worry about torches, pitchforks and tumbrels -- tentatively discussing how to save their own skins from revolution.
In a New York Times Op-Ed, former marketing conglomerate CEO Peter Georgescu writes: Capitalists Arise: We Need To Deal with Income Inequality. Joined by his friend Ken Langone, founder of Home Depot, Georgescu warns his fellow 0.01 percenters that “[w]e are creating a caste system from which it’s almost impossible to escape.” The column raises the specter of “major social unrest” if inequality is not addressed. In June, Cartier chief Johann Rupert — worth an estimated $7.5 billion — delivered the same message to his wealthy colleagues, telling them that the intensifying inequality and what it portends “keeps me awake at night.” He told his fellow elites that “We are destroying the middle classes at this stage and it will affect us.”
Here’s a telling passage,
relating today’s inequities to those during the Great Depression, the last
time a skyrocketing aristocracy had to ponder its own best interests in a
larger light:
“Georgescu and Langone’s mission perhaps finds its best Depression-era analog in Joseph Kennedy, the millionaire father of the eventual president John F. Kennedy, who said of the Depression that “in those days I felt and said I would be willing to part with half of what I had if I could be sure of keeping, under law and order, the other half.” Kennedy, like many (but hardly all) of his elite colleagues, knew that capitalism had to be bridled if it was to survive.”
“Georgescu and Langone’s mission perhaps finds its best Depression-era analog in Joseph Kennedy, the millionaire father of the eventual president John F. Kennedy, who said of the Depression that “in those days I felt and said I would be willing to part with half of what I had if I could be sure of keeping, under law and order, the other half.” Kennedy, like many (but hardly all) of his elite colleagues, knew that capitalism had to be bridled if it was to survive.”
Pause and ponder this. Is a classic, pyramidal-feudal society - the blatant aim of many oligarchs - even tenable anymore, in an era when an enraged middle class will have all the technical skills in the world? So far, that anger only simmers, repressed by political theater, distractions and everpresent hope. But where do the would-be lords (reflexively and unthinkingly obeying 6000 years of aristocratic habit) think re-pyramidalization can possibly lead, this time? When brainy kids will have a copy of Marx at one elbow and a bio-synthesis machine at the other, capable of concocting any organic compound and even viruses? Will gated resorts and robot butlers suffice, in such a future? Clearly, the smartest and wisest "trillies" (as I call them, in EXISTENCE) can tell things are different, this time.
== Or, are any of them really noticing? ==
Elsewhere, I have compiled a long list of biometric traits that are useful or effective at distinguishing one human being from another. These range from fingerprints and retinal or iris scans to face recognition, hand-bone ratios, voiceprints, walking-gait, linguistic-semantic habits... all the way to the otto-acoustic sound emissions that many of us radiates involuntarily from our eardrums.
Now comes news that just sitting in a room you'll leave a unique panoply of bacteria that can be attributed to you!
What does this have to do with the super-rich? Well, read the following and see if you can guess:
"Walking into E at Equinox, nothing seems out of the ordinary from a normal trip to the Columbus Circle gym location – that is, until you approach the retina scanner.... Privacy is a big draw for those with the means to purchase the $26,000 membership – about 50 people at the New York location, according to Garcia — which nets members two private training sessions a week and unlimited access to the facilities, as well as access to Equinox’s Fit3D body scan-technology, which allows both the member and the T4 coach the ability to have a 3D view of the member’s anatomy, offering an objective baseline of various body measurements to craft their program around...."
Um okay. So rich people are paying high rates in order to offer up their bodies to be measured in every conceivable way, so that unvetted parties will have every single biometric ... ah, I see you are getting it. But do they?
Safety-through-concealment is a fool's fantasy -- even for elites.
== But the myopic are steering ==
While we discuss billionaires who are sane enough to see which way the
wind blows… read here - Where Presidential Candidates Stand on Climate Change - how some are stepping up to counterbalance the lunacy propelled by short sighted coal-Koch-petro-sheiks and lords. Take Tom Steyer,
who spent $74 million in the 2014 elections to support Democratic candidates
who made climate change a critical issue in their campaign. And Republican
businessman Jay Faison will put $175 million behind the campaign of a conservative who
embraces the need to combat climate change, according to Politico.
Not the ideal situation, of course, which would be to take the bulk of corrupting money out of politics, the aim of Larry Lessig's campaign. (Join!) Still, perhaps indicative that not all zillionaires are myopic about their own self-interest.
Not the ideal situation, of course, which would be to take the bulk of corrupting money out of politics, the aim of Larry Lessig's campaign. (Join!) Still, perhaps indicative that not all zillionaires are myopic about their own self-interest.
Another
amazement from the same article? Who would imagine that Bobby Jindal
would come across as the sole sane conservative... at least in the one issue of
climate change? Well, after Katrina, you'd have to be utterly delusional
to be a denialist. But isn't that a modern GOP job requirement?
Read here a survey of the demmie and gopper candidates' position on this vital
issue.
== It's human nature at the tiller ==
Oh, but once you put aside a few sapient fellows out there, the chief trait we see at the top of the oligarchic pyramid is a standard reflex observed in nearly all apex aristocrats, across the dismal 6000 years of failure-feudalism -- a rationalization that their luck derived from superiority. Entitlement correlates with inherent right to rule... even to cheat.
== It's human nature at the tiller ==
Oh, but once you put aside a few sapient fellows out there, the chief trait we see at the top of the oligarchic pyramid is a standard reflex observed in nearly all apex aristocrats, across the dismal 6000 years of failure-feudalism -- a rationalization that their luck derived from superiority. Entitlement correlates with inherent right to rule... even to cheat.
An enlightening article portrays the ten multi-billionaires
who meddle most in U.S. politics. Left
out? The sub-rosa influence of three
vast, foreign money pools. First, the
Saudi Royal House and related petro-princes who have had a huge say – some
might say control – in the GOP infrastructure created by the Bush Clan, and
who are co-owners of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox empire. Second, the Chinese
government, which ensures that Sheldon Adelson’s by-far most profitable casino
properties are the ones in Macao, providing a pipeline of “profits” he can use
to influence US politics. And finally,
the network of Swiss and other banking havens that will lose big, if
international treaties on financial transparency ever pass – over fierce
objections by the Republican Party.
All of those groups fear one thing above all else. That electoral reform in the U.S. will eliminate cheating and restore Periclean citizen sovereignty and honest American institutions. That is their nightmare, and the biggest thing they donate gushers to prevent.
== Snippets: revealing the depth of denial ==
All of those groups fear one thing above all else. That electoral reform in the U.S. will eliminate cheating and restore Periclean citizen sovereignty and honest American institutions. That is their nightmare, and the biggest thing they donate gushers to prevent.
== Snippets: revealing the depth of denial ==
Growing disconnect: U.S. worker productivity rose 22% from 2000 to 2014; pay and benefits just 1.8%.
New NASA data indicates that sea levels have risen four inches in the last two decades:
Hilarious warped messages. Both the best-yet Bad Lip Reading (of the recent GOP presidential debate) and a classic of Ronald and Nancy Reagan urging kids to get on crack. And let’s be fair. There are some rib-tickling bad lip readings of dems, too!
Oh but it is not equal. Consider this: How conspiracy theories poisoned the Republican Party.
And finally... The museum memorial to the heroes of flight UA 93 is open, at last. The citizen militia that won the War on Terror – and I mean that, at every level – the very day it began. The only problem is that the memorial should be on the Washington DC Mall.
Oh but it is not equal. Consider this: How conspiracy theories poisoned the Republican Party.
And finally... The museum memorial to the heroes of flight UA 93 is open, at last. The citizen militia that won the War on Terror – and I mean that, at every level – the very day it began. The only problem is that the memorial should be on the Washington DC Mall.
And having plumbed the depths of denial (a river in Africa) that will do for politics... for a little while.