Plutocracy

[Zack Morris]

tl;dr: the new American elite is founded on shared beliefs, not blood and local corruption. For reasons unclear, this is not an improvement. The article wistfully recounts an era where Anglo Saxon heritage was necessary to ascend to elite status and asserts without evidence that there were substantial differences of regional culture (there were not). It concludes that today, having the wrong regional accent is a barrier, blissfully ignoring the prevalence of the mid-Atlantic accent in 20th century recorded media and Anglo Saxon animus toward pidgin dialects and ethnic accents.

[Doc]

tl;dr: the new American elite is founded on shared beliefs, not blood and local corruption. For reasons unclear, this is not an improvement. The article wistfully recounts an era where Anglo Saxon heritage was necessary to ascend to elite status and asserts without evidence that there were substantial differences of regional culture (there were not). It concludes that today, having the wrong regional accent is a barrier, blissfully ignoring the prevalence of the mid-Atlantic accent in 20th century recorded media and Anglo Saxon animus toward pidgin dialects and ethnic accents.

Joe Biden learned about Cockroaches He is Anglo Saxon
CQ7fLaQ-4CE

Biden family maid

SM8xUCQXcBk

[Enki]

tl;dr: the new American elite is founded on shared beliefs, not blood and local corruption. For reasons unclear, this is not an improvement. The article wistfully recounts an era where Anglo Saxon heritage was necessary to ascend to elite status and asserts without evidence that there were substantial differences of regional culture (there were not). It concludes that today, having the wrong regional accent is a barrier, blissfully ignoring the prevalence of the mid-Atlantic accent in 20th century recorded media and Anglo Saxon animus toward pidgin dialects and ethnic accents.

I for one celebrate the right's newfound class consciousness.

[Typhoon]

tl;dr: the new American elite is founded on shared beliefs, not blood and local corruption. For reasons unclear, this is not an improvement. The article wistfully recounts an era where Anglo Saxon heritage was necessary to ascend to elite status and asserts without evidence that there were substantial differences of regional culture (there were not). It concludes that today, having the wrong regional accent is a barrier, blissfully ignoring the prevalence of the mid-Atlantic accent in 20th century recorded media and Anglo Saxon animus toward pidgin dialects and ethnic accents.

Corruption is the lifeblood of the contemporary US managerial elite.

Nomenklatura, American Style.

[noddy]

shared beliefs in the supremecy of the status quo nobody really likes and only voted for as a way of getting rid of the orangutan.

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

XPodQeqmazA

[Zack Morris]

tl;dr: the new American elite is founded on shared beliefs, not blood and local corruption. For reasons unclear, this is not an improvement. The article wistfully recounts an era where Anglo Saxon heritage was necessary to ascend to elite status and asserts without evidence that there were substantial differences of regional culture (there were not). It concludes that today, having the wrong regional accent is a barrier, blissfully ignoring the prevalence of the mid-Atlantic accent in 20th century recorded media and Anglo Saxon animus toward pidgin dialects and ethnic accents.

Corruption is the lifeblood of the contemporary US managerial elite.

Nomenklatura, American Style.

The managerial elite are less corrupt now than at any time in US history. Any examples?

There was an extraordinary amount of corruption in the Trump administration but it primarily involved relatively unknown firms (e.g., Rivada), government officials, and their families.

[Simple Minded]

shared beliefs in the supremecy of the status quo nobody really likes and only voted for as a way of getting rid of the orangutan.

yep. Blue union and Red union have spoken. Talk about judging people on skin color. Ironic!

The irony is infinite. The same people who were having mental breakdowns and howling at the sky within minutes of Tump being elected, are now overjoyed that DC has been turned into a Nazi Concentration Camp or perhaps more accurately, the Baghdad embassy.

Now if they lock the gates and sever all communication into and out of the "Green Zone...."

Reminds of the meme of Trump with a puzzled look on his face saying: "The people who are calling me Hitler are also demanding I take away their guns?"

It is going to be a field day for memes for the next few years......

[Doc]

tl;dr: the new American elite is founded on shared beliefs, not blood and local corruption. For reasons unclear, this is not an improvement. The article wistfully recounts an era where Anglo Saxon heritage was necessary to ascend to elite status and asserts without evidence that there were substantial differences of regional culture (there were not). It concludes that today, having the wrong regional accent is a barrier, blissfully ignoring the prevalence of the mid-Atlantic accent in 20th century recorded media and Anglo Saxon animus toward pidgin dialects and ethnic accents.

Corruption is the lifeblood of the contemporary US managerial elite.

Nomenklatura, American Style.

The managerial elite are less corrupt now than at any time in US history. Any examples?

https://lidblog.com/joe-biden-burisma/

NY Post Shoots Hole In Joe Biden’s Burisma Denials

Of course I can understand how the above would confuse you given the lack of press coverage and the censorship of the above story.

But there is great news !! Joe Biden has been signing executives orders to bring honesty back to government !!

There was an extraordinary amount of corruption in the Trump administration but it primarily involved relatively unknown firms (e.g., Rivada), government officials, and their families.

I suppose this was random mud slinging to see what sticks Weds.

[Typhoon]

Re the global, rather then the parochial local US, plutocracy.

FT | Why does Davos Man get it so wrong?

Paywalled. Too spot on not to share.

We don’t know yet what will happen in 2021, because the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos has been called off. Normally at this time of year, political and business leaders gather in the Swiss ski resort to reveal the future. Now we’ll only discover what’s coming when they meet in Singapore in May. Actually, scratch that: most Davos predictions are worthless. There is no VIP crystal ball.

My aim here isn’t to mock Davos — that’s too easy. I’ll even skip the ritual joke about rich men arriving on private planes to discuss climate change, sexism and inequality. My only question is: how to improve the Davos product?

First, let’s review past predictions. In January 2008, as the subprime crisis unfolded, Davos buzzed with confidence, nicely articulated by Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute for International Economics: “It is inconceivable — repeat, inconceivable — to get a world recession.” To be fair, the forum’s 54-page Global Risks Report did include two paragraphs on subprime mortgages.

By January 2016, the referendum on Brexit was expected that year, while Donald Trump was the most-discussed Republican presidential candidate, about to win the New Hampshire primary. Yet that month’s Global Risks Report mentioned neither risk.

With everyone at Davos saying a Trump presidency couldn’t happen, economist Ken Rogoff suddenly realised it could. He told Bloomberg: “No matter how improbable, the event most likely to happen is the opposite of whatever the Davos consensus is.”

I don’t expect Davos to reveal the future. Almost all longer-term predictions — including mine, when I’ve been stupid enough to make any — are wrong

Leaping nimbly from blindness to power worship, Davos then welcomed Trump whenever he dropped in to spout falsehoods. On January 21 2020, last year’s opening day, the WEF’s founder Klaus Schwab thanked the already impeached president for “injecting optimism” into the global discourse. “We need dreams,” exulted Schwab.

By January 22, CNN was running “live coronavirus updates” on Chinese lockdowns, mandatory face masks and the virus’s arrival in the US — none of it mentioned by Trump or indeed almost any speakers at Davos. The panel titled “The Next Super Bug”, a tour d’horizon of biological threats, did very briefly address the actual next super bug. One panellist, Richard Hatchett of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, said the coronavirus could “potentially cause tens, hundreds of thousands of deaths, or even millions”. That thought was left unexamined.

Later, Hatchett added soothing words about the Wuhan outbreak: “You’re about to see social reactions that are probably going to be disproportionate to the current threat . . . You can’t predict what the next disease is going to be, by definition. You can’t predict when it’s going to happen.” It was already happening.

I don’t expect Davos to reveal the future. Almost all longer-term predictions (including mine, when I’ve been stupid enough to make any) are wrong. But Philip Tetlock, the psychologist who studies forecasting, told Davos in 2017 that skilled forecasters could illuminate the short term, specifically the “three- to 18-month range”.

The WEF, to its credit, summoned Tetlock to explain why Davos kept getting things wrong. He offered faint reassurance: “The notion that Davos Man is always wrong, that’s actually not true. It’s very, very difficult to do worse than chance. Whether the Davos Man is more accurate than the dart-throwing chimpanzee is another question.”

Masters of the universe are poor forecasters. That’s probably because of groupthink and because of Tetlock’s insight that famous and self- confident people are especially bad at predicting. They talk their own books and they are far from the coalface. In 2016 a panel of Davos Men’s chauffeurs might have done better at predicting Trump.

Perhaps the purpose of Davos is networking, but then why bother generating misinformation? A smarter summit would stick world leaders in the audience while social workers, virologists and reporters recounted recent trends. Davos should fly in Arieh Kovler, a corporate communications consultant in Jerusalem, who tweeted on December 21, after studying pro-Trump online forums: “On January 6, armed Trumpist militias will be rallying in DC, at Trump’s orders. It’s highly likely that they’ll try to storm the Capitol after it certifies Joe Biden’s win.”

For insights into the distant future, “leaders” should defer to creative types. After 9/11, the Pentagon wisely brainstormed with representatives from Hollywood about possible future attacks. The Simpsons TV show in 2000 foresaw a Trump presidency causing a budget crisis.

In 1995, the astronomer, writer and poet Carl Sagan expressed his “foreboding” of a future America “when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues”. He foresaw “pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”, while the US slid, “almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness”.

Post-pandemic, we need to re-engineer our world. Much of this will be difficult. Some of it, like ditching Davos, is surprisingly easy.

Follow Simon on Twitter @KuperSimon and email him at simon.kuper@ft.com

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2021. All rights reserved.

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

Thanks for breaching the paywall for us every once in a while.....'>........

[Simple Minded]

Thanks for breaching the paywall for us every once in a while.....'>........

Yes, thanks very much!

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

I got your missing NUKE button right here....'>....:

[Doc]

I got your missing NUKE button right here....'>....:

[Typhoon]

tl;dr: the new American elite is founded on shared beliefs, not blood and local corruption. For reasons unclear, this is not an improvement. The article wistfully recounts an era where Anglo Saxon heritage was necessary to ascend to elite status and asserts without evidence that there were substantial differences of regional culture (there were not). It concludes that today, having the wrong regional accent is a barrier, blissfully ignoring the prevalence of the mid-Atlantic accent in 20th century recorded media and Anglo Saxon animus toward pidgin dialects and ethnic accents.

Corruption is the lifeblood of the contemporary US managerial elite.

Nomenklatura, American Style.

The managerial elite are less corrupt now than at any time in US history. Any examples?

Oh, my. Where does one begin?

Biden's dissolute offspring acting as bag man in the Ukraine and PR China. The suppression of this by the US mainstream and social media.

Repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 under Clinton.

The LTCM bailout and the start of the "heads I win, tails you lose" Fed put under Greenspan.

The perma-wars in the Middle East. Invasion of Iraq, destabilization of Libya and Syria leading to the rise of ISIS.
Trillion of US$ mis-spent. Hundreds of thousands of lives lost across all involved. What to show for it? Bupkes.

The mortgage fraud causing the financial crisis of 2008 and the multi-trillion dollar bailouts of the perpetrators.

The inflation in the cost of college and uni education and the student-loan scam.

The exorbitant cost of US healthcare.

The export of US industrial - manufacturing capability overseas leading to the rise of the 1st major competitor to the US - PR China.
A competitor that is completely hostile to Western Enlightenment values.

Private equity loading viable US corporations with debt while asset-stripping.

Public corporation management share buybacks to boost share prices so as to exercise stock options rather than investing in the company.

The lobbyist and dark money control of the US Congress.

And so on.

[Simple Minded]

The managerial elite are less corrupt now than at any time in US history. Any examples?

There was an extraordinary amount of corruption in the Trump administration but it primarily involved relatively unknown firms (e.g., Rivada), government officials, and their families.

Reminds me of a segment on the Art Linkletter show: "Kids say the Darnedest Things!"

MFXti_KRcLw

[Doc]

JVziqPjsX-w

[Apollonius]

Went to put this in the thread about the 2020 election and see that it is locked.


Maybe it's just as appropriate here:


The secret history of the shadow campaign that saved the 2020 election - Molly Ball, Time Magazine, 4 February 2021

https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/

[Doc]

Went to put this in the thread about the 2020 election and see that it is locked.


Maybe it's just as appropriate here:


The secret history of the shadow campaign that saved the 2020 election - Molly Ball, Time Magazine, 4 February 2021

https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/

For more than a year, a loosely organized coalition of operatives scrambled to shore up America’s institutions as they came under simultaneous attack from a remorseless pandemic and an autocratically inclined President.

Sounds like a conspiracy to steal the election. Walks like a conspiracy to steal the election .......

oam82yoyUiM

[Typhoon]

Went to put this in the thread about the 2020 election and see that it is locked.


Maybe it's just as appropriate here:


The secret history of the shadow campaign that saved the 2020 election - Molly Ball, Time Magazine, 4 February 2021

https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/

All things must pass, even POTUS elections.

Ongoing post-mortems are fine here.

[Typhoon]

Went to put this in the thread about the 2020 election and see that it is locked.


Maybe it's just as appropriate here:


The secret history of the shadow campaign that saved the 2020 election - Molly Ball, Time Magazine, 4 February 2021

https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/

For more than a year, a loosely organized coalition of operatives scrambled to shore up America’s institutions as they came under simultaneous attack from a remorseless pandemic and an autocratically inclined President.

Sounds like a conspiracy to steal the election. Walks like a conspiracy to steal the election .......

oam82yoyUiM

More a confederacy of dunces, although Trump was no genius when it came to developing, promoting, and executing policy, which contributed to his loss.

Tablet | The Thirty Tyrants

The deal that the American elite chose to make with China has a precedent in the history of Athens and Sparta

In Chapter 5 of The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli describes three options for how a conquering power might best treat those it has defeated in war. The first is to ruin them; the second is to rule directly; the third is to create “therein a state of the few which might keep it friendly to you.”

The example Machiavelli gives of the last is the friendly government Sparta established in Athens upon defeating it after 27 years of war in 404 BCE. For the upper caste of an Athenian elite already contemptuous of democracy, the city’s defeat in the Peloponnesian War confirmed that Sparta’s system was preferable. It was a high-spirited military aristocracy ruling over a permanent servant class, the helots, who were periodically slaughtered to condition them to accept their subhuman status. Athenian democracy by contrast gave too much power to the low-born. The pro-Sparta oligarchy used their patrons’ victory to undo the rights of citizens, and settle scores with their domestic rivals, exiling and executing them and confiscating their wealth.

The Athenian government disloyal to Athens’ laws and contemptuous of its traditions was known as the Thirty Tyrants, and understanding its role and function helps explain what is happening in America today.

[Apollonius]

Thanks for that piece in Tablet, CS. Nicely put.

[Doc]

Nevada governor wants to allow large corporations to govern themselves and anyone in their "jurisdictions"

https://wearechange.org/nevada-governor ... vernments/

Nevada Governor Wants to Allow Tech Companies to Create Their Own Governments

Posted by John Titor | Feb 6, 2021 |

Imagine a place where private companies get to effectively separate from the surrounding area and create their own towns, raise their own taxes, and create their own laws – all while still using American dollars.

Such a place would bring a whole new meaning to the phrase “company town.”

Just imagine an Apple-ville, Google-town, or PornHubtopia, but instead of rising out of Silicon Valley, the companies may need to trek out to the Nevada desert.

Because Nevada is trying to make all this – and more – a reality with its latest economic development plan, which involves a decidedly innovative approach that differs starkly with the traditional tax abatements and incentives offered by states like New York (to megacorps like Amazon), and by other states, to other (also often already very large) companies. But Nevada isn’t just trying to lure in the big fish. It’s trying to convince people to come there and build.

According to a draft of the plan obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal (but not yet shared with the legislature), the law would effectively make Nevada an ideal place of business for the next generation of crypto-libertarian innovators. These corporation-run governments “would carry the same authority as a county, including the ability to impose taxes, form school districts and justice courts and provide government services, to name a few duties,” the Review-Journal added.

While the details of the plan were just leaked this week, when Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak first introduced the plan during his State of the State address on Jan. 19. At that time, he named Blockchain LLC as one company that had committed to traveling to Nevada and building there.

The leak to the Review-Journal is starting to pick up traction, as the story about Nevada’s plan for “Innovation Zones” attracts the interest of the national press. It has all the makings of a good political story – after all, it features a Democrat trying to create an independent, decidedly capitalist, libertarian society.

The whole point of the plan is to bring in more businesses, people and competition by bringing “groundbreaking technologies” to the state, which is already benefiting from the exodus from nearby California, as stretched residents of the Bay Area (and other parts of the Golden State) have been making homes in Las Vegas, Reno, Carson City and other parts of the Silver State, and more will likely continue to do so as California moves to chase away the wealthy, especially in the tech space.

The governor’s office of economic development will manage applications for the plan. And even though it’s hardly a sure thing to pass the legislature, it has already got some developers and local officials, excited.

Storey County Commissioner Lance Gilman, one of the industrial center’s developers, said that the Blockchains Innovation Zone is “going to have an impact on Storey County, and the jury is still out on whether that will be positive or negative.” Gilman said that the county is staying open-minded about the idea, but there needs to be some sort of incentive to compensate for ceding the land to the zone itself.

[Simple Minded]

More a confederacy of dunces, although Trump was no genius when it came to developing, promoting, and executing policy, which contributed to his loss.

Tablet | The Thirty Tyrants

The deal that the American elite chose to make with China has a precedent in the history of Athens and Sparta

In Chapter 5 of The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli describes three options for how a conquering power might best treat those it has defeated in war. The first is to ruin them; the second is to rule directly; the third is to create “therein a state of the few which might keep it friendly to you.”

The example Machiavelli gives of the last is the friendly government Sparta established in Athens upon defeating it after 27 years of war in 404 BCE. For the upper caste of an Athenian elite already contemptuous of democracy, the city’s defeat in the Peloponnesian War confirmed that Sparta’s system was preferable. It was a high-spirited military aristocracy ruling over a permanent servant class, the helots, who were periodically slaughtered to condition them to accept their subhuman status. Athenian democracy by contrast gave too much power to the low-born. The pro-Sparta oligarchy used their patrons’ victory to undo the rights of citizens, and settle scores with their domestic rivals, exiling and executing them and confiscating their wealth.

The Athenian government disloyal to Athens’ laws and contemptuous of its traditions was known as the Thirty Tyrants, and understanding its role and function helps explain what is happening in America today.

Outstanding article. Thanks for posting. Reminds me of Victor Davis Hanson's book The Case for Trump.

[Typhoon]

The Spectator US |Wokeyleaks does Davos

You see, the worst crime you can commit at Davos is to be gauche. The superrich go to Paris for their fashion, they go to London’s Frieze for their art and they go to Davos for their social justice. The (oxy)moronic genius of Trump was to see that half the world is sick to death of the phony righteousness of the Davos elites. All he had to do to seem like an honest alternative was to offend as many of them as possible. Why do you think half of America still voted for the incompetent dummy despite his endless failures? It’s because when they look at ‘wokeness’ these days, they see the faux piety of corporations and the fameoisie and they despise it so profoundly that they elected the political equivalent of an un-PC stand-up comic!