I did an interview with a print reporter yesterday about what has been going on with lack of prosecutions, the banks, and Wall Street in general. We discussed the corrupt exchanges and HFT.
I dropped lots of F-Bombs, called out cowards and crooks and held nothing back.
Afterwards, she commented that I seemed angry.
I wrote back suggesting that I am a happy dude, and its not Anger — its closer to an ineffable sadness that comes once you realize you have lost something dear. I am old enough to have grown up when this nation was a Democracy, but that era has passed. We now live in a nation no longer run by the citizens — it is a Corporatocracy — and that makes me sadder than angry . . .
She suggests perhaps a better word is outraged.
I wonder: Why have the Europeans figured out they are getting screwed, and we haven’t? Why are they taking to the streets en masse, while we seem to be watching our own control over our own futures slip from our hands almost as if from afar?
In America, we are too busy dropping the kids off at soccer, running around looking for sales and bargains, racing to keep our heads above water. We seem to forget to get outraged. Our control over our once Democracy — the one we had a revolution against a monarchy dictating decisions from afar — slips away from us. Not with a bang, not even with a whimper, but with a 1000s acts of gradual ceding of power to the new Monarch. We have given up hard won rights to a coordinated attack from all three branches of government; Our Congress has become the legislative branch of eBay — Congressmen are auctioned off to the highest bidder; they even have a Buy It Now button to get specific legislation passed. The executive branch has fallen under the sunk cost fallacy, afraid to prosecute banks because we spent so many billions bailing them out. It turns out that even our once venerable Supreme Court is just as corrupted, with lobbyists partying with Justices and backdooring ethics by hiring their wives.
In short, our new overlords are enormously well funded, well connected, relentless and perhaps most of all, patient. This new King was not appointed by primogeniture, or even Divine Right, but by acquiring enough profits in the free market that they can buy control over society, even as they thwart that free market ideal for their own ends. We have become, in short, a Corporate Monarchy.
The right question isn’t why am I angry, sad and outraged. The proper question is, why aren’t you?
This post originally appeared at The Big Picture and is reproduced with permission.
25 Responses to “The U.S. Is Now a Corporate Monarchy”
capitalpreservr • November 17th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
The corporate fraud has been harmful and appalling, BUT it represents the SMALLEST source of real losses of my income and worth – the LARGEST sources of real losses of my income and worth are (1) congress and (2) socialist parasites. I say hang them all, after a real quick trial of course.
America has become a Corporate Monarchy — Barry Ritholtz | Atla$ $ucce$$ • November 17th, 2011 at 11:11 pm
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capitalpreservr • November 18th, 2011 at 3:08 pm
I agree that there are many problems with money influencing politicians, BUT the magnitude of your claim, ie "The U.S. Is Now a Corporate Monarchy", is gross exaggeration in two ways equally. First, the socialist parasites who want to influence politicians so that they make little or no contribution at all in taxes AND simultaneously receive thru income redistribution the earnings of others have a FAR GREATER political influence than all the corporations combined squared. Second, the impact upon me of ALL the combined corporate influence on politicians is microscopic, while the direct negative impact upon me financially in terms of confiscated earnings by the profliferating socialist parasites is HUGE and increasing. The factual reality that entitlement programs increase in number and ALWAYS increase in expeditures, and amount to thousand fold more money than ALL the corporate welfare, are irrefutable proof of both my points. We need a return to our founding: everybody is responsible for earning their own, no one has anny right to any one else's earnings, and the politicians cannot redistribute earnings to buy votes.
capitalpreservr • November 18th, 2011 at 6:10 pm
i disagree
capitalpreservr • November 18th, 2011 at 6:11 pm
more socialsit propaganda – the HUGE problem crushing us is the exploding entitlement programs and run-away socialism
capitalpreservr • November 18th, 2011 at 6:12 pm
the site admins are censoring all criticism of this propaganda
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rafikimnk • November 22nd, 2011 at 6:32 am
If its any consolation, democracy has not been hijacked by big money only in the US but all over the world. Look at my country Kenya, a poor African country where known drug lords openly buy their way into parliament? Democracy and so-called free and fair elections is a wonderful fiction but real fiction writers are more interesting. I am not being sarcastic. I am dead serious. It does not make me angry or outraged or even sad. I only accept the truth which many are unwilling to face and take up a copy of Thoreau's essay "Civil disobedience" rather than the so-called daily news for my bedside reading.
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