[jeffkrol]

A Romney showdown: Krugman versus Brooks - The New York Times - Salon.com

Krugman’s argument is simple: A country is not a corporation. What might make sense for the corporate bottom line — for example, cutting costs by laying off employees and outsourcing production to foreign countries — makes little sense for a nation.

With this column, Brooks settles, once and for all, the question of whether he himself is an elitist. And not just any run-of-the-mill elitist! No, Brooks is a heroic, truth-telling elitist, with the courage to say what conventional wisdom about American discourse declares verboten!

In sum, great presidents are often aristocrats and experienced political insiders. They experience great setbacks. They feel the presence of God’s hand on their every move.

Unfortunately, we’re not allowed to talk about these things openly these days. We disdain elitism, political experience and explicit God-talk. Great failure is considered “baggage” in today’s campaign lingo.

But for now, excuse me while I look for some tea to dump in a nearby harbor. All this talk of benevolent aristocracy is making me want to start a revolution.

corollary..........

http://www.salon.com/2012/01/13/romney_and_the_sociopathology_of_bain/
A good example of that policy in action came when Bain and Goldman Sachs took a controlling interest in Baxter International’s medical testing division, which was spun out as “Dade Behring.” Bain slashed the company’s research and development spending, and used the savings to borrow $421 million. “Dade then turned around and used $365 million from the loan to buy shares from its owners, giving them a 4.3 times return on their investment,” Kosman recounts. Dade Behring filed for bankruptcy in 2002.

That’s not an isolated case. The Wall Street Journal examined 77 Bain deals during Romney’s tenure and found that “22% either filed for bankruptcy reorganization or closed their doors by the end of the eighth year after Bain first invested, sometimes with substantial job losses. An additional 8% ran into so much trouble that all of the money Bain invested was lost.”

Among the companies acquired and plundered by Bain that eventually went bankrupt were Stage Stores, American Pad & Paper, GS Industries and Details. The job slaughter at American Pad became a campaign issue when Romney ran against Ted Kennedy in 1994. Bain and its partners, including Romney, made a fortune on each of these companies. There were other Bain companies that did nicely — Romney likes to point to Staples — but it’s ludicrous to give Bain credit for Staples prospering after it recovered from its assault on the company. That’s like thanking a virus for not turning into pneumonia.

Still, there’s food for thought in a recent paper published in the Journal of Business Ethics (h/t to William Cohan at Bloomberg), in which a British academic named Clyde R. Boddy maintains that an influx of corporate psychopaths paved the way for the 2008 financial crisis.

---

Last edited by jeffkrol; 01-13-2012 at 05:52 PM.

[Ratmagiclady]

Yep, there we go.

I do wonder why some of what's going on with this rhetoric isn't more obvious to more people. Not that they're paying that close of attention.

[jheu02]

I think they have the spelling wrong...shouldn't it be Bane Capital?

[kswier]

Krugman’s argument is simple: A country is not a corporation. What might make sense for the corporate bottom line — for example, cutting costs by laying off employees and outsourcing production to foreign countries — makes little sense for a nation.

So, we all know corporation are people. If a county is not a corporation, then the country is not people???

[Ratmagiclady]

So, we all know corporation are people. If a county is not a corporation, then the country is not people???

A corporation is a *mechanism.* No more a person than your Visa account. Or your insurance policy. (No matter how many charming little geckos or salesclerks they put on the advertising) Just cause it employs people doesn't make it a 'person.'


And this is coming from the resident animist. A corporation isn't a person, it's a *construct.* A pile of contracts. And for purposes of the law, it's not even like a gestalt or an egregore: it's just ...a legal construct, not 'people'. Especially not in terms of 'We The People.' In the very sense we're all held to be *equal.* Precisely so that someone can't use property or ideology or any other means of ganging up to *degrade* the value and essential rights of an individual person.

A corporation can't go to jail if it breaks the law, for instance. But it can sure act a lot like a sociopathic mob or robber baron. Without conscience, remorse, consideration, or even a better instinct for self-preservation.

It's also unlike a nation in that it's not *supposed* to be sovereign in *this* one. Certainly not *over* the people *in* this one.

[jeffkrol]

Mitt being Mitt...............
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/us/politics/mitt-romney-offers-praise-for-...siness.html?hp

A week later in Iowa, Mr. Romney offered another unsolicited endorsement for “a place in Florida called Full Sail University.” By increasing competition, for-profit institutions like Full Sail, which focuses on the entertainment field, “hold down the cost of education” and help students get jobs without saddling them with excessive debt, he said.

Mr. Romney did not mention the cost of tuition at Full Sail, which runs more than $80,000, for example, for a 21-month program in “video game art.”

Nor did he mention its spotty graduation rate. Or, for that matter, that its chief executive, Bill Heavener, is a major campaign donor and a co-chairman of his state fund-raising team in Florida.

That team, Mr. Romney said last fall when he appointed Mr. Heavener, “will be crucial to my efforts in Florida and across the country.”

Beyond his fund-raising role, Mr. Heavener has committed his own resources to the cause. He and his wife have each given the maximum $2,500 to the campaign, and he gave $45,000 to Restore Our Future, a “super PAC” run by former Romney aides to bolster his campaign. The chairman of the private equity fund that owns Full Sail University — C. Kevin Landry of TA Associates — gave $40,000 to Restore Our Future, records show.

[mikemike]

I thought this thread was going to start with a story about a family act entering a talent agent's office seeking representation.

[jeffkrol]

[boriscleto]

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

[boriscleto]

[jeffkrol]

He suggested there should be a "trusted traveler" program in which people who travel frequently and are known to be not a threat, like congressmen, don't have to be searched.

Rand Paul in TSA showdown after refusing pat down - Political Hotsheet - CBS News
Don't they know who he is!!!!!!! LOL

[boriscleto]

Rand Paul in TSA showdown after refusing pat down - Political Hotsheet - CBS News
Don't they know who he is!!!!!!! LOL

He's the Aqua Buddah!

[Nesster]

Of course the real aristocrats fly private or corporate jets; congressmen in the words of C Write Mills in The Power Elite are mid-level drones.

The Power Elite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Ratmagiclady]

It would be difficult in any event for me to like a dude the Herald liked, (Murdoch) while trying to simultaneously portray him as a Kennedy and the Kennedys as 'bad.'

And then there's of course living there.

[jolepp]

...
The Power Elite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It seems Mills had it figured out in 1956 already. I wonder how the existence of the USSR affected things: it was a credible threat militarily and ideologically, that is, as long as it existed there was an overall threat to the 'power elite' (henceforth 'elite'). I seem to recall reading about the idea (somewhere ) that the USSR was actually very beneficial *outside* its sphere of influence; it would seem that the USSR provided an outside counterbalance to be reckoned with, which caused the elite to be more mindful of the public (or the mass) at least, and, on the other hand severely limited what could be done globally. Otoh, the cold war was, in essence a war, which Mills postulates useful and necessary for the elite.