brainiac conspiracy

Why We Fight

There might have been a time---WWII, for sure---when we fought wars for legitimate reasons, but in my lifetime, I can't think of a single one our nation has waged (with the provisional exception of Afghanistan; was probably justifiable 12 years ago, but not anymore) that was even remotely defensible on national-security grounds. Then again, when war-toy manufacturing is among your political leaders' preferred government make-work programs, you've got to keep buying all the shiny toys those people make, and what's the use in buying them of you're never going to use them? So perpetual war, at this point, is essentially baked into America Inc.'s business model.

---Baron V

Today's Worst Persons

The Toyota Motor Salespersons.

I was wrong: capitalism is, by definition, evil. Remind me again why I should ever want to work in service of such a system, or live in a country that gives it free rein. Uruguay looks better with each passing day.

---Baron V

Another Round of Fines Should Take Care of it

Repeating a point made earlier today, it's great to be emptying the jails and releasing many thousands of prisoners who pose no serious threat to society since there are still many thousands of people in this country who are a serious threat to society, and who are still running free:

Joseph and Mary Romero of Chimayo, N.M., found that their mortgage note was assigned to the Bank of New York three months after the same bank filed a foreclosure complaint against them; in other words, Bank of New York didn’t own the loan when they tried to foreclose on it.

Glenn and Ann Holden of Akron, Ohio, faced foreclosure from Deutsche Bank, but the company filed two different versions of the note at court, each bearing a stamp affirming it as the “true and accurate copy.”

Mary McCulley of Bozeman, Mont., had her loan changed by U.S. Bank without her knowledge, from a $300,000 30-year loan to a $200,000 loan due in 18 months, and in documents submitted to the court, U.S. Bank included four separate loan applications with different terms.

It's All About Policy

There are very few things that happen by accident in this world. Even so-called "acts of God" like earthquakes and tsunamis are utterly predictable---though we obviously can't quantify specific dates for them---and in the realm of human commerce, everything happens for a reason. All the cant you hear about "invisible hands" and "self-correcting" wisdom has always been primarily intended to immunize the winners from being denounced as immoral greedy assholes who hoard obscene amounts of wealth while millions of peasants starve---because the fact of the matter is, the reason those people can hoard so much wealth is that policymakers allow them to do it.

---Baron V

Maybe We Shouldn't Have Let The Private-Equity Guys Buy Up All The Houses That The Banks Stole From Us, And Turn Them Into Rentals. Come to Think of it, Maybe We Should've Sent Some of The Bankers To Prison And Given The Evicted Some Money Relief

Whatever they coulda-shoulda-woulda done, one thing the people who govern us don't get to do today
---or any other!--- is play the Innocent Bystander. The scarcity, i.e., unaffordability of rental housing in this country didn't happen because of some act of God, it happened because of policy or lack of same. These predatory vampires have already destroyed millions of fortunes. What did the administration think was really going to happen if they were simply left to their own devices?

---Baron V

Nothing a 100% Estate Tax Wouldn't Solve

Because oh, all the things we could do with the money:

Policy experts and donors recognize that there’s no better time than now to empower young philanthropists. Professionals in the field, citing an Accenture report from 2012, estimate that more than $30 trillion in wealth will pass from baby boomers to younger generations by around 2050.

(Via.)

---Baron V

Pity The Poor Job Creators

Oh how they struggle.

As an alternative, how about instead of bitching and complaining about the high price of real estate, you simply refuse to buy any until the price comes down? Developers and realtors don't want their properties sitting unoccupied for too long. Otherwise they lose money! I've been advocating this for quite awhile now, but if you feel like you're being unfairly exploited, don't give the exploiters any of your money. "Going Galt" can work both ways, y'know.

(Via.)

---Baron V

The People Who Really Govern Us

Their names never appear on a single ballot, and nobody ever casts a votes for them. The people we do vote for---or against---are merely their paid celebrity spokesmodels. Wish it weren't so, but that's the political reality in the greatest nation ever. Perhaps it's time we started to change this.

---Baron V

Nothing Smart Policy Can't Solve

We really could solve the problem of income inequality tomorrow if we truly wanted to. No, it doesn't mean that you and I will get big paychecks in the mail right away (though it's not a bad idea!). But we will need a political leadership class with the vision and skill to craft economic policy that disincentivizes the hoarding of wealth. This can be accomplished in any number of ways, but they all involve (at least) substantial tax increases on rich people, who are, alas, the hunting buddies and golf partners of our current political leadership class, so I suppose it will be up to the Millennials to address when they take the assume of power in this country. The only question remaining is whether we can avert a total collapse of the existing social order until then.

---Baron V

Nothing We Won't Do to Help Them

I don't know if this article is true or if it's just another attempt by some horrible people in our foreign-policy establishment to gin up another war in central Asia, but either way, it disabuses us of the notion that the people who govern us are, in the aggregate, anything other than a protection racket for a bunch of incompetently managed banks. Glad we're clear on that.

---Baron V

Unpaid Internships Are Also Frequently Illegal

If only there was an agency of government that could curb the most rampant abuses.

---Baron V

Unpaid Internships Are Evil

You need a job done, you hire someone and pay him an honest day's wage for an honest day's work. It's the American way! Or should be, anyway, and particularly so when the interns in question generate hundreds of millions of dollars for their employers every year. It speaks volumes to the moral caliber of the interns that there isn't a chronic epidemic of game fixing-for-hire in college sports.

---Baron V

It's Only Called "Stealing"

When the little people do it.

it's unfortunate that the people whop govern us don't seem to realize how complicit they've been in fostering our culture of kleptocracy. No, they're not all grifters---though plenty of them are---but by their apathy and disinterest, they've enabled our corporate sector to morph into a network of organized crime syndicates. Just as we didn't break the power of the Mob until we started sending real-life mobsters to prison for their offenses, so to it will be with our latter-day mob bosses. Just a thought.

---Baron V

We Should Give Them More of Our Money

Because they did such a good job of managing it in the last decade.

This is what's so maddening about our politics: that both of our major political parties have been commandeered, at all levels of leadership, by a bunch of privatizing grifters. Kinda goes back to my last post about our culture of kleptocracy, which obviously was bad enough in the Aughts but which has now spiraled out of control because nobody who destroyed the fortunes of millions has ever been held to account for their actions. Yes, the Third Label No Way grifters will still devise new and novel ways to grift, and it's up to us to call them for scorn and derision when they do. We sure as hell can't expect Team Democrat to do it anymore---they're a big part of the problem.

---Baron V

Prison is Only For The Poor Blah Addicts

Everyone else is entitled to pillage at will.

If you'd asked me six years ago if I thought that America's culture of kleptocracy would only grow more firmly entrenched as a feature of our economy under a two-term Obama administration, I'd have said you were nuts. But obviously, you weren't, and just as obviously, I was. Oh well!

---Baron V

Nothing to See Here, Folks

Following up on a previous post, like, what could go wrong.

---Baron V

Today's Worst Person

Sam Zell.

But only a deranged Marxist would dare to imagine that our peculiar version of capitalism extracts enormous profits off the forced misery and suffering of other people. Even when, you know, it does.

---Baron V

Grifters Gonna Grift

Because whenever you read Fournier praising some nonpartisan heroics:

It always helps to read the fine print:

Troiano is cofounder of The Can Kicks Back, a nonpartisan campaign that advocates for U.S. debt reduction. His supporters include deficit hawks Erskine Bowles, a Democrat, and Alan Simpson, a Republican, as well as Ross Verney, who advised the presidential campaign of independent Ross Perot.

---Baron V

American Medici

Following up from an earlier post, now that we are to be ruled for the foreseeable future by our billionaire overlords, which one(s) do you think should govern us? Personally, I'd probably throw in my lot with Buffett since he genuinely seems to be among the least avaricious of them, and maybe even amenable to having his taxes raised! A bit, at least. For those of us who came of age when only one person on the planet (J.P. Getty) was a billionaire---and barely worth a single billion---we almost can't conceive the amounts of money these assholes have. So why the hell didn't we repatriate a lot of it when we had the votes in Congress?

I suppose the honest answer is: we never had the votes. At least, not in the last 30 years. Team Democrat is no longer the farmer-labor party but the Interweb-telecom party.

---Baron V

Everything is Rigged

And it has been that way for years.

More to the point, after Bear Sterns and Lehman and Wachovia and Merrill, you'd think that regulators would have moved to ban certain types of financial instruments, or certain types of trades, in the interest of market integrity. But of course that hasn't happened, and that's why we can be certain that our corporate overlords will run the ship of state aground again. The only question is when.

---Baron V