An old friend asked the other day, "What are we going to do about that party they got going on down in Washington. It don't matter who you send there!"
Yup. What about affordable government?
What's clearly on Display in our financial crisis are the evils of Capitol-ism.
I've long thought that the Democrat Party, the National Media and the Federal Bureaucracy are knotted together by self interest and a shared belief in their own importance. Republicans, too, can join them in the knot and often do. Today they form their own political party, the Washington Party, that works to move ever more power to the capital and to the "national centers" -- be it information centers (New York, D.C.), financial centers (New York, Chicago), or entertainment (LA). Basically, for the Washington Party, all problems are national and all problems have a national solution -- and they use the media to bring you along. Your kids go to a lousy school? Look to Washington for the answer, not your local community. This is the platform of "The Washington Party."
The ideology of the Washington Party is Capitol-ism. For a Capitol-ist, both state power and economic power are centered on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, where the inhabitants of the corridors of power meet and bargain. Their preferred form of economic organization is the cartel, sometimes organized by government but always controlled by members of the Washington Party. These new Cartels function much like the old ones -- except they focus on shielding mediocrity (by emphasizing credentials over performance) as well as creating abnormally large benefits for the members.
Of course Cartels are illegal, but only when non-members of the Washington party try to organize them. As we "fight" global warming the Washington Party will organize Carbon Cartels that will dominate the entire economy. These will be promoted as life-saving "Cartels of Caring": it is not about screwing you and benefiting them, it is about saving the planet.
All the institutions at the Center of the Washington Party have scandals connected to them where the national "watchdog" media is late to the scene. When they arrive they start tampering with evidence, and then issue reports with mistakes and omissions that point to conclusions that lie in one direction -- a direction favorable to the Washington Party and the system of Cartels it creates.
If there is a problem with the free market the answer is regulation. If their is a problem with the regulations the answer is more regulation. Problems with the additional regulations require yet more additional regulations. It's a one way ratchet -- at least until the whole rickety structure is about to collapse. Then there is a half-assed deregulation, followed by a collapse which is then blamed on the Free Market. In California ten years ago they "deregulated" the electricity market but kept the price controls in place. This was not an example of deregulation. This was an example of stupidity -- or brilliant bureaucratic strategy. When the doo-doo fell into the wind tunnel and the lights went out in California there was someone else with poo-poo on their face.
The Federal Fannie and its spawn, Frantic Freddie are at the Center of the subprime mortgage mess. Congress constructed a Fun House at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street where low showmanship and high finance meet. Fannie and Freddie were the host, and they brought the good faith and credit of the American people in there to play. In those mirrors everyone looked fat and solvent. The Fat and Frantic Feds were the center of the "Cartel of Caring" which screwed the people it was alleged to help and greatly enriched members of the Cartel. Even now rule one is: protect the Washington Cartels.
So naturally it is reported as if the fault were in the private economy. The Mainstream Media is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Washington Party. The Federal Fannie is already sitting on health care -- another Cartel of Caring. They want of feed it a much bigger slice of the pie -- so if you think it is heavy now, just wait.
Belmont Club » Just so
The Heart and Soul of Capitol-ism is "The Caring Cartel." The business of the Cartel is not the general welfare, but the welfare of the Cartel. In the Cartels of Caring the clerks who run them are king. Barney Frank is an alpha clerk. Clerks cut free of their middle class masters ( and resentful of them) now run government, finance and Eduction. They give Western Civilization the soul of a Clerk.
Check the box.
Yup. What about affordable government?
What's clearly on Display in our financial crisis are the evils of Capitol-ism.
I've long thought that the Democrat Party, the National Media and the Federal Bureaucracy are knotted together by self interest and a shared belief in their own importance. Republicans, too, can join them in the knot and often do. Today they form their own political party, the Washington Party, that works to move ever more power to the capital and to the "national centers" -- be it information centers (New York, D.C.), financial centers (New York, Chicago), or entertainment (LA). Basically, for the Washington Party, all problems are national and all problems have a national solution -- and they use the media to bring you along. Your kids go to a lousy school? Look to Washington for the answer, not your local community. This is the platform of "The Washington Party."
The ideology of the Washington Party is Capitol-ism. For a Capitol-ist, both state power and economic power are centered on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, where the inhabitants of the corridors of power meet and bargain. Their preferred form of economic organization is the cartel, sometimes organized by government but always controlled by members of the Washington Party. These new Cartels function much like the old ones -- except they focus on shielding mediocrity (by emphasizing credentials over performance) as well as creating abnormally large benefits for the members.
Of course Cartels are illegal, but only when non-members of the Washington party try to organize them. As we "fight" global warming the Washington Party will organize Carbon Cartels that will dominate the entire economy. These will be promoted as life-saving "Cartels of Caring": it is not about screwing you and benefiting them, it is about saving the planet.
All the institutions at the Center of the Washington Party have scandals connected to them where the national "watchdog" media is late to the scene. When they arrive they start tampering with evidence, and then issue reports with mistakes and omissions that point to conclusions that lie in one direction -- a direction favorable to the Washington Party and the system of Cartels it creates.
If there is a problem with the free market the answer is regulation. If their is a problem with the regulations the answer is more regulation. Problems with the additional regulations require yet more additional regulations. It's a one way ratchet -- at least until the whole rickety structure is about to collapse. Then there is a half-assed deregulation, followed by a collapse which is then blamed on the Free Market. In California ten years ago they "deregulated" the electricity market but kept the price controls in place. This was not an example of deregulation. This was an example of stupidity -- or brilliant bureaucratic strategy. When the doo-doo fell into the wind tunnel and the lights went out in California there was someone else with poo-poo on their face.
The Federal Fannie and its spawn, Frantic Freddie are at the Center of the subprime mortgage mess. Congress constructed a Fun House at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street where low showmanship and high finance meet. Fannie and Freddie were the host, and they brought the good faith and credit of the American people in there to play. In those mirrors everyone looked fat and solvent. The Fat and Frantic Feds were the center of the "Cartel of Caring" which screwed the people it was alleged to help and greatly enriched members of the Cartel. Even now rule one is: protect the Washington Cartels.
So naturally it is reported as if the fault were in the private economy. The Mainstream Media is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Washington Party. The Federal Fannie is already sitting on health care -- another Cartel of Caring. They want of feed it a much bigger slice of the pie -- so if you think it is heavy now, just wait.
Belmont Club » Just so
Western civilization is dying a death by a thousand cuts. The quest for perfection has become such an obsession that it is sought even at the cost of basic functionality. A friend who works at big name consulting firm said that so much attention is focused on ensuring compliance — checking off boxes, making sure that everything is gender-friendly, green, non-racist and whatever else — that sound business is almost an afterthought. In this modern world it’s alright to have something that doesn’t work, as long as it’s perfect.
The Heart and Soul of Capitol-ism is "The Caring Cartel." The business of the Cartel is not the general welfare, but the welfare of the Cartel. In the Cartels of Caring the clerks who run them are king. Barney Frank is an alpha clerk. Clerks cut free of their middle class masters ( and resentful of them) now run government, finance and Eduction. They give Western Civilization the soul of a Clerk.
Check the box.
2 comments:
This is one of the most insightful posts I've read. The "discussion" about health care in this campaign presupposes a federal solution (unconstitutionality never mentioned) and it's a given that only good can come from federal action. The illegitimacy of Supreme Court legislation is ignored as any fool knows that a central government solution trumps Article I Section 8 restriction any time.
Minor wrinkles in the operation of free markets and pain from their inevitable adjustments are held up as proof of their rotten foundation.
Wise indeed was the man who observed that no defect of capitalism is ever forgotten and no promise of socialism is ever remembered.
Your observation that the failures of regulatory schemes are the "proof" of the failure of the free market remind me of Solzhenitsyn's elucidation in TGA of how unskilled Bolshevik hacks put in charge of the Moscow water works had to find an explanation for their failure other than their own incompetence. Solution? The competent engineers (who were undermined by the hacks) had to be "Wreckers." The same process is being played out on the Hill at this very moment.
I'm much taken with the idea of the loss of the Mandate of Heaven in Chinese thinking. When things just get out of kilter too much -- sort of like the dark opening scenes of Bergman's The Seventh Seal with its lines about (I think) calves being born with two heads, etc. -- the otherwise docile population simply withdraws its support for rational or irrational reasons.
I maintain we are at a juncture of profound intellectual confusion here and elsewhere in the West where even a hugely important aspect of national sovereignty such as the national border itself as well as the very ethnic composition of the state are matters of indifference to vast numbers of highly intelligent and extremely well educated citizens.
Similarly, we have the spectacle of huge money transfers to backward Arab and Persian regimes and related ripples of high energy prices throughout the U.S. economy being insufficiently grave to effect the most simple and obvious policy change of permitting more energy extraction at flank speed until better alternatives come on line.
What, me worry?
Ordinary people who wear sensible shoes and don't pierce their belly fat with hooks and chains look at the idiots running our affairs and pound the table in frustration that they don't have the sense to empty water out of a boot even with the directions printed on the heel. Is it any wonder that Sarah Palin causes a sensation for showing up looking like an honest to gosh Earth Person who doesn't have a deep seated urge to trash every decent, normal sentiment and value of the yeomanry?
I dont' think there's enough time for the essential facts of Obama's radicalism and disdain for this country to reach the sensible people of the country. At least, I want to believe that it's a question of lack of information. It's hard to cling to that belief too strongly when even in the MSM there's been enough to alert any person of sufficient intelligence to Obama's two-headed calves. How many times do you have to hear Jeremiah Wright intone "God damn America!" before you conclude that there's something fundamentally amiss with our boy?
I fear, alas, that the continuing acceptance of Obama is evidence of a much more serious consequence of an erstwhile republic that started out majestically but is now grounded in the thinking of Mass Man satisfied with cheap pleasures and indifferent to a hollowing out of the culture by hideously naive people.
Thank you for your comments, Col. Bunny. I'm think a major problem is our current national media. There is so much evidence about the Democrats' involvement in the collapse of Fat Fannie and Frantic Freddie I wonder how the media can ignore it. OK, I don't. They no longer sell information, they simply peddle their prejudices.
But I'm hopeful we'll muddle through somehow.
It's been a while since I read TGA. A few years ago I read in the Telegraph that PM Tony Blair was complaining about poor work done at the National Health Service -- and blamed it on "wreckers." I left a comment about what an unfortunate choice of words that presumably was (unless he was trying to whip the labor party in line).
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