CREATING OPPORTUNITY FOR GREED

There seems to be a recurring Republican theme in the business world. There is the given which is that the “bottom line” is always more important than ethics are—the MBA theme. This is easily labeled as being dishonest even if it is sometimes difficult to identify and may be a matter of judgment. However, another recurring theme is worse but seems a lot more acceptable. I lived in a country where if was OK to steal from a rich gringo but a crime to steal from fellow compatriots. Figuring out how to put your hands into the pockets of government is like that—as if taxpayers money is free money; a pot at the end of a rainbow.

Mitt Romney ran a venture capital business called Bain Capital. He and his friends would identify companies that were vulnerable, meaning they could buy the company and then sell the assets for more than the purchase price. They considered the difference as profit. It isn’t until you look at how this was done that turned it into “savage” capitalism—a dirty business. We all say the consequences of bankrupting the company, to destroy unions, and fold pension funds in to the assets as part of the bankruptcy settlement. We assumed that the original owners sold the company because they were too honest to steal the pension funds in such a blatantly obvious way. What was more difficult to see was the relationship Venture Capital established with the government based on established government programs to save the company from bankruptcy, thus save jobs. It takes a great deal of skill and practice to write these grants and Bain became experts in writing them and shepherding them thorough congress. Its called lobbying. The government would grant the gargantuan loans and then the company would fold the loan into the assets and go bankrupt, thus, did not have to pay the loans back. They did it time after time.

This type of nefarious activity conflates with a practice called “privatization of government functions”, a process that turns the taxpayers into second party payers. What it does is disconnect the taxpayer from the actual cost.  Like health insurance, I pay a steady but high fee to an insurance company and they pay the doctors and hospitals. The hospital charges me $120,000 for one and on half hour procedure. What do I care, I don’t have to pay it. They hire war zone cooks and pay them $200,000 to feed soldiers that are earning $40,000 per year. What do I care, I don’t have to pay it. The IRS the NSA, the embassy guards are included. Everywhere, it is the same thing. The irony is that I do have to pay, in fact, we all have to pay; taxes go up astronomically. The people who are advocating for privatization of government services are the very same people who cry about the high taxes—it only makes sense if you look at it through their glasses; they are greedy opportunists and after they “starve the government to death, they will start to prey on each other.

This introduces a strange phenomenon referred to as collective greed, or creating equal opportunity for greed. Case in point, Darrell Issa wants to privatize the United Postal Service. He wants American capitalism, which to him means unfettered (unregulated) freedom to do business to take over government functions. At first, his actions puzzled me. He is in the car theft business and not package delivery systems like FedEx, UPS, or DHL. How can he make money, as Romney makes money from destroying jobs or as a hospital administrator makes money through second party payer system of health care? It is easy to say that he benefits from having them bribe him with huge campaign donations to do what he is doing, which is probably true but there is more.  

It is also true that he is a Republican, therefore believes making money is morally right; riches are the reward for hard work. Those who are rich should be praised. If you are not rich, it is your own fault; you didn’t work hard enough, you are not smart enough, or you are just plain lazy, which means you are undisciplined; being lazy, un-discipline and not working hard is immoral. Therefore the working class deserves to be poor, and no one should care in fact they should be punished; ask Ayn Rand, Rand Paul, Eric Cantor, Ron Johnson, or Gov. McCrory if they care about poor people. In Issa’s GOP brain, privatization is a way of creating opportunity; therefore, privatization is morally right. Privatization is promoting capitalism and freedom. His justification for destroying the United States Postal Service is to create opportunity for others. How can you are argue against the very basic American beliefs of equal opportunity, freedom, and capitalism—after all is said an done, it was on these “moral” principles our Founding Fathers built this country. As a liberal, I simply do not agree with him.

URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated