If there is one thing that shows how corrupt and ridiculous politics in the US has become, it is that the mere report that former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is considering entering the race for the Democratic nomination for president has gained so much media attention. The reason for this is, of course, that he is a billionaire and nothing gives you more ‘credibility’ in the media on anything at all than being very rich, and the fact that he says he is willing to spend a lot of money on his candidacy just adds to that perception.
To me what his moves signifies is that the oligarchs are really concerned that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are drawing so much attention and doing so well in the polls and that Joe Biden just does not have what it takes to win and his understudies Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris are not likely to succeed if he fails.
As Sanders says about this new development:
The billionaire class is scared and they should be scared.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 7, 2019
Yes, scared of their investment income only growing at a small amount rather than 6-7%.
When you are so rich that you can’t spend the income your investments bring in, you might as well give some of it back.
A thoughtful comment from a thoughtful person from another blog.
‘I hope that there’s an agreement between Warren and Bernie because if they keep competing through all the primaries, they will divide the left vote and give the nomination to Biden, which none of us want. So maybe they should wait to see who wins the first primaries and then the winner should endorse the other and campaign for him or her.’
The billionaires are frightened in much the same way as outlaws were in the old west when barbed wire, telegraph poles, and the railroads were moving in. The days of easy plunder, unaccountability, and casual violence were going away. The wild west was never quite as wild as the dime novels made it out to be and it only existed for about 35 years. Roughly between the end of the Civil War and 1900.
Similarly the days of the pirate businessman, epitomized by Albert J. Dunlap (Chainsaw Al), may also be drawing to a close. After roughly 45 years of running amok it is time to bring a little law and common sense to their destructive excesses. There will always be rogue scofflaws within the business and finance community, as there are still cowboys and outlaws now, but the worse of the actors and behaviors are going to be reigned in and their profligacy turned around and put to good use within the society. It is going to be, for them, an end of an era. For the rest of us, it is the promise of justice and fairness becoming a little more common.
#3
Lorn, I hope you are right. I have a feeling we are near a turning point. The availability of the information allowing more of us to see how bad the billionaire class is behaving and also the cut throat capitalism they employ, is in large part controlled by those same people. We are in a race to see whether enough non wealthy people will come to their senses and at least stop voting against their own interests or whether the propaganda machine can be turned up to 11 and completely overwhelm us with things like deep-fakes.
In a not entirely unrelated, at least in my mind, Warren’s efforts to clean up business and finance are in some ways similar to EU moves to curtain shadow banking and the hiding of money in offshore accounts. I don’t think it was a coincidence that the Brexit campaign, financed by British and Russian oligarchs, followed shortly after proposed changes that move toward accounts in the Bahamas and Cayman Islands becoming open to regulators and tax authorities.
The wild west and casino mentalities about finance and banking may be under pressure world-wide. There will always be corruption and double-dealing but perhaps, just perhaps, the most egregious behaviors can be reigned in.