IcyPatriot

What do you think of this article/opinion?
Barry Ritholtz makes some good points for discussion.

Democrats vs Republicans: Makes No Difference! It?s You vs Corporations | Greg Hunter?s USAWatchdog

onlinekj

Where is the good man?

A good man is hard to find.(Anaheim Ducks Jerseys)

You always get the other kind (Cincinnati Reds Jerseys)
Just when you think that he is your pal（Columbus Blue Jackets Jerseys）
You look for him and find him fooling 'round some other gal.(NHL Jersey.Atlanta Falcons Jerseys)
Then you rave, you even crave. （Atlanta Thrashers Jerseys）
To see him laying in his grave.（Boston Celtics Jerseys）
So, if your man is nice, take my advice and hug him in the morning, kiss him ev'ry night,（NFL Jerseys）
Give him plenty lovin', treat him right.（Charlotte Bobcats Jerseys）
For a good man nowadays is hard to find, a good man nowadays is hard to find.(Chicago Bulls Jerseys）

PatsFanInVa

Okay!

I'm a fan. This is a good way to think - now let's translate it to reality. Example:

- the author explains to us that it was an arch-rightist who put the bailouts in place, and a Dem who continued the program.

Reality - the only thing I can think of that is worse than the staggeringly unpopular bailouts is if we didn't do them. Double the unemployment we're seeing now. Blah blah blah, crippled global economy, blah blah blah.

So "if you're stuck in the left/right paradigm" and "missing the big picture," as the author puts it, you may take one or more position that professes an acceptance of a necessary but very unpopular move. The difficulty with this position is that the author has confused the popular mood for the answer.

I like where he is going in his rejection of partisanship, but scratch the surface and it's a rejection of reality - that's my problem with this lazy column.

Being "the individual", I would like very much that he's a fan of financial regulation - except that of course, we all know that if we regulate the financial sector, the next cry is "that's big government!"

As long as he stays in airy-fairy land and just tells us it's the individual against the corporation, the author wins. To his credit he's described the half-measures in favor of constraining corporatism positively. He's also accurately called the fact that the corporations are even more disproportionately powerful via the Citizens United decision. Like everybody, he hates lobbyists and feels the two parties are corrupt. Bully.

Now, in reality, what's the next wave? Another incoherent bunch of snake oil salesmen?

If it's "you vs. the corporations," maybe everybody with a corporate job will quit. Wait, no, everybody's clinging to their corporate jobs.

Thing number 1 we learned in 2008 is that the banks and the corporations have a loaded gun to everybody's head, the threat of unemployment. The 2008 cave-in, when the commanding heights of our economic system were poised to pancake the whole arrangement back to rubble, certainly highlights the relationship.

But the difficulty is the relationship does, in fact, exist. Do you in fact "fight the power" by trying very hard to become unemployed, or just quit? No. You pay your mortgage or rent, your cable bill, your internet bill.

So, good start. Now try to put it into practice - real practice. That's not going to yield teabaggers or WTO protesters. It's going to yield a crop of policy wonks who just haven't been bought yet.

Until they run for office - and then presto chango, they're more of the same, a bunch of well-meaning would-be civil servants who run their campaigns through corporate money.

Real campaign finance reform would go a ways toward defusing the toxic relationship between the ability to get elected, and the ability of a corporation to buy an election.

Unfortunately, we have recently taken giant steps backward in this regard.

The real big picture is - surprise surprise - the same old big picture, once you scratch the surface. It's only "neither right nor left" because the author is careful to stay away from the particulars.

Think for ten seconds - part of his list of the "old paradigm" is government regulation vs. free enterprise. Where do you think Corporations stand in this "old paradigm"? Their present power was bred by the "old paradigm's" sustained shift away from regulation - of Corporations. That's thirty years of "getting government off our backs," with "us" being the Corporations. The recent Supreme Court ruling ends up being a ruling in favor of free speech - by Corporations.

Okay, dude, so what do you actually do about it? He seems to like Elizabeth Warren in the financial reform agency role. That's about all I see here that he thinks is of a piece with his "new paradigm." The rest is a complaint rather than a search for a solutions, and a smug elevation of his own non-position above "the old paradigm."

Interested to see what others think of the article. It certainly captures a strong popular mood out there. I just don't think it makes too much sense.

PFnV