There's quite a few well-meaning liberals in Toronto soiling their undergarments at the prospect of the vile Steve Bannon beshitting their fair town. Today the Sunday Star had an opinion piece by Amira Elghawaby and the indefatigable Bernie Farber, who are aghast that Bannon is coming to The Munk Debates to take on David "Axis of Evil" Frum.
That's bound to be as fake a "debate" as any in history, but both these guys are seasoned media veterans who know how to put on a show. Frum long ago abandoned the Canadian liberalism that he imbibed with his mother's milk, to embrace the siren of American Exceptionalism. He's a hard-right, free-market, America first, (right after Israel) kind of Republican.
Bannon is a Navy veteran who joined Goldman Sachs after an honourable discharge. He worked his way up the corporate ladder, and walked away as a Vice President of Goldman Sachs.
He was rich. He was bored.
Rich and bored... a toxic combo if ever there was one. Some guys handle it OK. They spend their time boinking bimbos, snorting pharmaceutical-grade coke, buying sports teams, and commissioning super-yachts. It keeps them busy and the general public is relatively unscathed.
Other guys, unfortunately, think they need a different kind of hobby. Politics.
These are the guys who crave the spotlight, and Big Media certainly has provided Bannon with plenty attention. Here's a backgrounder on Bannon in Forbes. The guy owns a slice of the residuals from the Seinfeld show, for fuck's sakes!
All this press he gets is just free advertising for his political consultancy. He's another Podesta or Manafort. He's a hustler flogging a product. Isn't that what made America great?
Steve Bannon is every bit as much a devotee of American Exceptionalism as is David Frum.
They just have different marketing strategies.
Showing posts with label Forbes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Forbes. Show all posts
Sunday, September 9, 2018
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Putin puts finishing touches on Trump take-over with Tillerson nomination
If you've been following the latest fallout from the December 8 fiasco in the mainstream media, you'll already know that it was Putin who facilitated the Trump victory.
Yup, Putin's minions manipulated the election with a series of exquisitely timed leaks designed to cast Hillary in a negative light.
It worked.
And no, Hillary didn't lose because tens of millions of Americans are fed up with the status quo; she lost because of Putin's perfidy, plain and simple. Apparently it doesn't matter how many photo-ops you stage with pop-cult sweethearts like Katy Perry and LeBron James, Putin's got the mojo to push all that pop-culture trash into the ditch. Hell, even the promise of a blow-job from Madonna wasn't enough to entice voters!
To be fair, there are corners of the mainstream where the dominant MSM narrative isn't getting a lot of traction. Here's Doug Henwood at that bastion of (neo)liberalism The Guardian claiming it was Hillary, not Putin, who won the election for Trump.
And here's a wildly untoward opinion piece from Tom Basile at Forbes claiming that the "real" fake news is found in mainstream media. (Like Forbes?)
Wow!
But in spite of those outliers, it's hard not to notice that there's been a big push to paint Trump as Putin's stooge.
Enter Rex Tillerson. Rex has spent his entire working life on the bridge of the good ship Exxon-Mobil. There's not a president or prime minister anywhere in the developed, developing, under-developed, or un-developing world who doesn't return his phone calls. Promptly.
Isn't that the kind of guy you'd want as Secretary of State?
And although this point is rarely made, Tillerson heads a company that actually has it's own State Department. Not nearly as well populated as that other State Department that operates out of DC, but arguably populated by folks with a much higher level of competence. After all, how many Exxon-Mobil execs needlessly lost their lives in Libya?
So even though the man has zero "political experience," he has tons of successful political experience.
As the regular reader well knows, the think tank here at Falling Downs has been more than a little sceptical about the president-elect's road to the White House. But the more he builds a management team with folks who have serious real-world experience instead of nominating slimy political insiders, the more we think the man deserves a chance.
But we're still a long way from 20.1.17.
Yup, Putin's minions manipulated the election with a series of exquisitely timed leaks designed to cast Hillary in a negative light.
It worked.
And no, Hillary didn't lose because tens of millions of Americans are fed up with the status quo; she lost because of Putin's perfidy, plain and simple. Apparently it doesn't matter how many photo-ops you stage with pop-cult sweethearts like Katy Perry and LeBron James, Putin's got the mojo to push all that pop-culture trash into the ditch. Hell, even the promise of a blow-job from Madonna wasn't enough to entice voters!
To be fair, there are corners of the mainstream where the dominant MSM narrative isn't getting a lot of traction. Here's Doug Henwood at that bastion of (neo)liberalism The Guardian claiming it was Hillary, not Putin, who won the election for Trump.
And here's a wildly untoward opinion piece from Tom Basile at Forbes claiming that the "real" fake news is found in mainstream media. (Like Forbes?)
Wow!
But in spite of those outliers, it's hard not to notice that there's been a big push to paint Trump as Putin's stooge.
Enter Rex Tillerson. Rex has spent his entire working life on the bridge of the good ship Exxon-Mobil. There's not a president or prime minister anywhere in the developed, developing, under-developed, or un-developing world who doesn't return his phone calls. Promptly.
Isn't that the kind of guy you'd want as Secretary of State?
And although this point is rarely made, Tillerson heads a company that actually has it's own State Department. Not nearly as well populated as that other State Department that operates out of DC, but arguably populated by folks with a much higher level of competence. After all, how many Exxon-Mobil execs needlessly lost their lives in Libya?
So even though the man has zero "political experience," he has tons of successful political experience.
As the regular reader well knows, the think tank here at Falling Downs has been more than a little sceptical about the president-elect's road to the White House. But the more he builds a management team with folks who have serious real-world experience instead of nominating slimy political insiders, the more we think the man deserves a chance.
But we're still a long way from 20.1.17.
Monday, October 31, 2016
Ukraine Pres Poroshenko pays high personal price for nation's freedom and democracy
Petro Poroshenko used to be one of the top oligarchs in Ukraine; those few dozens of visionaries who, due to their integrity, intelligence, and hard work managed to divide up the nation's wealth amongst themselves in the glorious (for them) window of opportunity that opened up just as the sun was setting on the Soviet empire.
While the fortunes of the vast majority of Ukrainians were going down the toilet, Poroshenko and his fellow oligarchs were shamelessly enriching themselves. Like his fellow oligarchs, Petro studiously scaffolded his political connections into an ever-growing personal fortune. In 2012 Forbes magazine welcomed him into the ranks of the world's billionaires. A year later his net worth stood at US$1.6 billions.
Alas, there then blew in the "Nuland-Pyatt Spring," the gentle breezes of which wafted through the Maidan in early 2014, grew and grew and grew in intensity until it was a virtual hurricane for freedom and human rights, its virtuous force 5 winds blowing an elected government clear out of the country!
Under a recent law, Ukraine's parliamentarians are now required to self-disclose their net worth. All to do with the never-ending war on corruption, don't you know, and according this story at Deutsche Welle, Poroshenko has declared a meagre 26 millions!
Wow! From 1,600 millions to 26 millions in a mere two years? That loss is almost Trumpian in scale!
But perhaps we should not feel pity for the man prematurely. Didn't his name come up in those Panama Papers revelations? You don't suppose those shell companies were part of a plan to disappear his assets, do you?
Hmm...
While the fortunes of the vast majority of Ukrainians were going down the toilet, Poroshenko and his fellow oligarchs were shamelessly enriching themselves. Like his fellow oligarchs, Petro studiously scaffolded his political connections into an ever-growing personal fortune. In 2012 Forbes magazine welcomed him into the ranks of the world's billionaires. A year later his net worth stood at US$1.6 billions.
Alas, there then blew in the "Nuland-Pyatt Spring," the gentle breezes of which wafted through the Maidan in early 2014, grew and grew and grew in intensity until it was a virtual hurricane for freedom and human rights, its virtuous force 5 winds blowing an elected government clear out of the country!
Under a recent law, Ukraine's parliamentarians are now required to self-disclose their net worth. All to do with the never-ending war on corruption, don't you know, and according this story at Deutsche Welle, Poroshenko has declared a meagre 26 millions!
Wow! From 1,600 millions to 26 millions in a mere two years? That loss is almost Trumpian in scale!
But perhaps we should not feel pity for the man prematurely. Didn't his name come up in those Panama Papers revelations? You don't suppose those shell companies were part of a plan to disappear his assets, do you?
Hmm...
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Warren Buffett believes raising minimum wage would hurt poor people
84 year old Warren and his 91 year old side-kick Charlie Munger were waxing wise at the Berkshire annual pow-wow the other day.
Warren is considered the second richest man in the world after Bill Gates, and Charlie is on the Forbes billionaire list in his own right.
The billionaires think we should not raise the minimum wage, because raising the minimum wage would hurt poor people.
Yup, paying the working poor a decent wage would just fuck them up.
Why can we not just call bullshit on such odious and obvious bullshit?
America is brain-dead.
Warren is considered the second richest man in the world after Bill Gates, and Charlie is on the Forbes billionaire list in his own right.
The billionaires think we should not raise the minimum wage, because raising the minimum wage would hurt poor people.
Yup, paying the working poor a decent wage would just fuck them up.
Why can we not just call bullshit on such odious and obvious bullshit?
America is brain-dead.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Why Canada needs a Charter of Economic Rights
Here's something for the 400 soon-to-be unemployed Heinz workers in Leamington to mull over.
According to Forbes, Warren Buffett is the world's 4th richest man, with a net worth of 53 billion dollars.
Jorge Lemann is the world's 33rd richest man, with a net worth of 18 billion dollars.
Just to put a billion dollars in perspective, a typical Heinz employee in Leamington would have to work for 20,000 years to make a billion dollars.
Warren stands tall at 83 years old, atop a 53 million dollar loot-pile
Jorges loot-pile is barely half that size.
Warren and Jorge have joined forces to buy the HJ Heinz company with a view to making themselves more money.
Because apparently they don't have enough.
This will be achieved by deploying the usual slash-and-burn strategies that have enriched hedge-fund shitbags for generations. Every dollar that can be leveraged out of a worker's pocket and diverted into the obscenely engorged wallets of Warren and Jorge is a step in the right direction.
Whether that destroys workers, their families, and their communities is quite irrelevant. It's all about "efficiency," don't you know?
Bullshit!
It's all about making obscenely rich people richer.
The layoffs and plant consolidations looming at Heinz contribute nothing of value to the overall economy. The Lemann-Buffett rape of HJ Heinz is a prime example of non-productive economic activity.
For starters, profits on non-productive economic activity should be taxed at a rate of 100%.
That would de-incentivize the Lemanns and Ackmans and Romneys of the world.
They could turn their attention to doing something useful for society!
Beyond that, as a society we need to get away from the idea that "democracy" is about nothing more than voting for one party or another every few years. Democracy should value the interests of ALL members of the society. We need to put the interests of the worker in Leamington on a par with the interests of Buffett or Lemann making their next billion.
Without economic democracy there is no democracy at all.
In the meantime, this is one household that is going to muddle through without using any HJ Heinz products from here on in.
Hope you do the same in your household.
According to Forbes, Warren Buffett is the world's 4th richest man, with a net worth of 53 billion dollars.
Jorge Lemann is the world's 33rd richest man, with a net worth of 18 billion dollars.
Just to put a billion dollars in perspective, a typical Heinz employee in Leamington would have to work for 20,000 years to make a billion dollars.
Warren stands tall at 83 years old, atop a 53 million dollar loot-pile
Jorges loot-pile is barely half that size.
Warren and Jorge have joined forces to buy the HJ Heinz company with a view to making themselves more money.
Because apparently they don't have enough.
This will be achieved by deploying the usual slash-and-burn strategies that have enriched hedge-fund shitbags for generations. Every dollar that can be leveraged out of a worker's pocket and diverted into the obscenely engorged wallets of Warren and Jorge is a step in the right direction.
Whether that destroys workers, their families, and their communities is quite irrelevant. It's all about "efficiency," don't you know?
Bullshit!
It's all about making obscenely rich people richer.
The layoffs and plant consolidations looming at Heinz contribute nothing of value to the overall economy. The Lemann-Buffett rape of HJ Heinz is a prime example of non-productive economic activity.
For starters, profits on non-productive economic activity should be taxed at a rate of 100%.
That would de-incentivize the Lemanns and Ackmans and Romneys of the world.
They could turn their attention to doing something useful for society!
Beyond that, as a society we need to get away from the idea that "democracy" is about nothing more than voting for one party or another every few years. Democracy should value the interests of ALL members of the society. We need to put the interests of the worker in Leamington on a par with the interests of Buffett or Lemann making their next billion.
Without economic democracy there is no democracy at all.
In the meantime, this is one household that is going to muddle through without using any HJ Heinz products from here on in.
Hope you do the same in your household.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Marx, Engels... Forbes?
I know!
There's a disconnect in that title. But take a read of this slam of uber-corp General Electric.
Turns out "Generous Electric" is one of the most polished practitioners in the art of looting employee pensions.
Here in Canada none other than Conrad Black was one of the pioneers of the practice when he went after the pension "surplus" of the Dominion Store cashiers and shelf-stockers back in the day.
Unfortunately, practices that were once seen as egregious violations of the social contract, if left unchallenged, eventually give rise to a revised social contract.
Which is how Canada's most liberal newspaper today came to publish an article called "Bankable sick days a perk past its prime."
They were not, regrettably, being ironic.
Canada's most liberal newspaper references both the Fraser Institute and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business in a "news" article that argues vehemently that "perks" like defined benefit pensions and bankable sick days are relics of an era when unions had too much clout.
Thanks to the last thirty years of Reaganomics, bankable sick days and defined benefit pension plans are now almost exclusively the purview of unionized public sector workers.
That's because the private sector workers have been squeezed out of their unions and their benefits by the ever-present and all-too-real threat of having their jobs offshored.
As you may have noticed, most public sector workers are immune to that threat. You can't really hire out the township snow-plowing to China or Mexico. Or your teaching or policing.
But you can demand that they reduce their expectations to the emaciated level of the utterly gutted private sector.
And what a shameful spectacle it is to see Canada's most liberal newspaper leading this charge.
There's a disconnect in that title. But take a read of this slam of uber-corp General Electric.
Turns out "Generous Electric" is one of the most polished practitioners in the art of looting employee pensions.
Here in Canada none other than Conrad Black was one of the pioneers of the practice when he went after the pension "surplus" of the Dominion Store cashiers and shelf-stockers back in the day.
Unfortunately, practices that were once seen as egregious violations of the social contract, if left unchallenged, eventually give rise to a revised social contract.
Which is how Canada's most liberal newspaper today came to publish an article called "Bankable sick days a perk past its prime."
They were not, regrettably, being ironic.
Canada's most liberal newspaper references both the Fraser Institute and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business in a "news" article that argues vehemently that "perks" like defined benefit pensions and bankable sick days are relics of an era when unions had too much clout.
Thanks to the last thirty years of Reaganomics, bankable sick days and defined benefit pension plans are now almost exclusively the purview of unionized public sector workers.
That's because the private sector workers have been squeezed out of their unions and their benefits by the ever-present and all-too-real threat of having their jobs offshored.
As you may have noticed, most public sector workers are immune to that threat. You can't really hire out the township snow-plowing to China or Mexico. Or your teaching or policing.
But you can demand that they reduce their expectations to the emaciated level of the utterly gutted private sector.
And what a shameful spectacle it is to see Canada's most liberal newspaper leading this charge.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Is one hedge fund manager worth 55,000 nurses?
According to Payscale.com the median income for nurses in 2011 was 55,000 dollars.
That's not a bad income. Depending on where you live, your family could have a more or less decent life on that income. And we all understand what nurses do.
They help sick people.
According to Forbe's, the highest paid hedge fund manager in 2011 was Raymond Dalio of Bridgewater Associates. He earned himself three billion dollars in 2011. We all know what hedge fund managers do.
They help themselves.
Doing some elementary math, we find that the hedge fund manager makes the equivalent salary of 55,000 nurses.
Who contributes more to society?
One hedge fund manager?
Or 55,000 nurses?
That's not a bad income. Depending on where you live, your family could have a more or less decent life on that income. And we all understand what nurses do.
They help sick people.
According to Forbe's, the highest paid hedge fund manager in 2011 was Raymond Dalio of Bridgewater Associates. He earned himself three billion dollars in 2011. We all know what hedge fund managers do.
They help themselves.
Doing some elementary math, we find that the hedge fund manager makes the equivalent salary of 55,000 nurses.
Who contributes more to society?
One hedge fund manager?
Or 55,000 nurses?
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Forbes feels the love for unions
How gratifying to see one of America's iconic business sites publish something that doesn't feature the usual knee-jerk anti-labor bias. Of course, maybe Adam Hartung inadvertently slipped this one past his editors and we'll next see his byline at the Daily Worker.
By now the story of Hostess' demise is well trod territory. It's been brought to my attention that I've been wrong to pin the blame on hedge fund shitbags. I'm not so sure. Maybe Ripplewood is going to take a haircut on this one, but apparently two bond funds hold all or most of the secured debt.
That means the sharpies who bought the debt at pennies on the dollar back around the time of the original Hostess bankruptcy are going to be sitting pretty as they get paid out in full, while thousands of pensioners will be up Shit Creek without a paddle.
Not to mention that in the course of the last eight years a clique of insiders in the executive suite rewarded themselves with outlandish raises and bonuses while demanding draconian givebacks from the workers and "managing" a venerable company into the ground.
There may be examples extant of hedge funds making a useful contribution to the society at large, but for the most part they are predators who are all too willing to destroy the common good so long as their investors and their management can make a killing.
That's why we need a 100% tax on non-productive economic activity.
By now the story of Hostess' demise is well trod territory. It's been brought to my attention that I've been wrong to pin the blame on hedge fund shitbags. I'm not so sure. Maybe Ripplewood is going to take a haircut on this one, but apparently two bond funds hold all or most of the secured debt.
That means the sharpies who bought the debt at pennies on the dollar back around the time of the original Hostess bankruptcy are going to be sitting pretty as they get paid out in full, while thousands of pensioners will be up Shit Creek without a paddle.
Not to mention that in the course of the last eight years a clique of insiders in the executive suite rewarded themselves with outlandish raises and bonuses while demanding draconian givebacks from the workers and "managing" a venerable company into the ground.
There may be examples extant of hedge funds making a useful contribution to the society at large, but for the most part they are predators who are all too willing to destroy the common good so long as their investors and their management can make a killing.
That's why we need a 100% tax on non-productive economic activity.
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