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It's a clambake!
Monday, December 08, 2003
Blog around blogtopia (yes, skippy really did coin that phrase!)
The farmer has found the perfect holiday gift item.
Mustang Bobby looks at a very corrupt Congressman.
BlogAmY is in fire alarm hell.
More later.
Oh, you CEOs and fully owned political subsidiaries
A good conspiracy theory manages to seamlessly reconcile things that are counterintuitive, things that have no basis in fact whatsoever and biased observations of things that actually did - and continue to - occur. They are universal in scope and have a tendency to grow bloated - until they collapse.
The major appeal of a good conspiracy is NOT that it explains everything - though it purports to, but that it provides a lazy template for viewing the world. If your theory is good enough, you don't need to use reason or logic and you'll never know doubt, not ever again. As new events intrude, they can be slotted into pre-ordained little cubbyholes. It doesn't matter if they make no sense. If you cock your head sideways and sneeze three times while standing on one leg, they can be jostled into place.
Conspiracy theorizing of this sort can a lonely business. But if you can get a whole bunch of sideways cocked headed people sneezing and standing on one leg, it becomes the norm. It's even better if you can hire people to enforce it, propagandize it and make sure those who don't play the game, don't make a living.
The major value a CEO brings to any given company is not expertise in widget manufacture. The CEO gets the job because he has connections that insure preferential treatment from governments and other CEOs. The rise to the top is not marked by meritorious service, but ruthless manipulation. Team playing is frequently a disadvantage. Knowing when to place the knife - and maintaining an affable personality until then, is the best qualification.
As a consequence of this mythologizing, there is a whole class of people who have a romantic notion of themselves as mercenary administrators. Their mad executive skills can be applied anywhere. And sure enough, they can. It's such a popular notion that the same policies that destroy one company and rob people of their livelihoods are repeated again and again. The profoundly evil multimedia presentations of the CEO wannabe class will be as infamous as book burnings one day. They have the same effect.
The nearest moral equivalent is torching a perfectly sound building then claiming credit for looting it before the roof caves in.
What keeps the house of cards going is the immense wealth of this country and the small cadres of people in every organization who actually know what they're doing. I'm sure everyone has the encountered The One Competent Person in Department X, Y or Z. They're the ones who sleep poorly and have ulcers. The CEO has a strong interest in retaining these individuals - at least until they can finish outsourcing their jobs and looting their pensions.
That's where globalization comes in. A skilled person who wants an exponentially greater wage than the person who lives in a relatively poor country is a tremendous burden to the CEO class - not to mention a living, breathing reminder of just how useless they are.
The destructive nature of the CEO practices is sustainable for quite some time. A transnational can suck a country dry, move on to fresh victim and come back to loot when the first recovers sufficiently. The "free trade" agreements hamstring governments who might like to act for the benefit of their countries.
The resource depletion and drastic climate change the CEO class has forced down our throats will degrade life for everyone at some point. The only people who doubt that are Bjorn Lomborg and Rush Limbaugh groupies. It doesn't trouble CEOs because they measure their wealth by how little other people have. There's nothing as nauseating as the whining of a CEO who makes a few million less than some equally vile counterpart.
Taking measures to forestall disaster doesn't necessarily entail the end of the CEO class. It would be nice, of course. But there are suitably despicable ways to go about it that will insure their comfort and power for years to come. Making the switch to alternative energy and conservation needn't mean adopting ethics. Eminent domain with lowball compensation can be used to seize property. Huge subsidies can be granted, protesters can be beaten by thugs and reviled by smug media shills. The CEOs can congratulate themselves for these humane gestures.
I couch my suggestions in these terms because appeals to humanity, enlightened self-interest and plain common sense are useless with some people. Seizing less well off people's land to place windmills where they'll ruin rivals' views and kill migratory birds - all on the taxpayer's tab - is sufficiently awful that it could become CEO policy. One could sell it to the mouthbreathers by claiming environmentalists, feminazis and sneering liberals oppose it. It would be evil! Surely that's reason enough to do it.
A good conspiracy theory manages to seamlessly reconcile things that are counterintuitive, things that have no basis in fact whatsoever and biased observations of things that actually did - and continue to - occur. They are universal in scope and have a tendency to grow bloated - until they collapse.
The major appeal of a good conspiracy is NOT that it explains everything - though it purports to, but that it provides a lazy template for viewing the world. If your theory is good enough, you don't need to use reason or logic and you'll never know doubt, not ever again. As new events intrude, they can be slotted into pre-ordained little cubbyholes. It doesn't matter if they make no sense. If you cock your head sideways and sneeze three times while standing on one leg, they can be jostled into place.
Conspiracy theorizing of this sort can a lonely business. But if you can get a whole bunch of sideways cocked headed people sneezing and standing on one leg, it becomes the norm. It's even better if you can hire people to enforce it, propagandize it and make sure those who don't play the game, don't make a living.
The major value a CEO brings to any given company is not expertise in widget manufacture. The CEO gets the job because he has connections that insure preferential treatment from governments and other CEOs. The rise to the top is not marked by meritorious service, but ruthless manipulation. Team playing is frequently a disadvantage. Knowing when to place the knife - and maintaining an affable personality until then, is the best qualification.
As a consequence of this mythologizing, there is a whole class of people who have a romantic notion of themselves as mercenary administrators. Their mad executive skills can be applied anywhere. And sure enough, they can. It's such a popular notion that the same policies that destroy one company and rob people of their livelihoods are repeated again and again. The profoundly evil multimedia presentations of the CEO wannabe class will be as infamous as book burnings one day. They have the same effect.
The nearest moral equivalent is torching a perfectly sound building then claiming credit for looting it before the roof caves in.
What keeps the house of cards going is the immense wealth of this country and the small cadres of people in every organization who actually know what they're doing. I'm sure everyone has the encountered The One Competent Person in Department X, Y or Z. They're the ones who sleep poorly and have ulcers. The CEO has a strong interest in retaining these individuals - at least until they can finish outsourcing their jobs and looting their pensions.
That's where globalization comes in. A skilled person who wants an exponentially greater wage than the person who lives in a relatively poor country is a tremendous burden to the CEO class - not to mention a living, breathing reminder of just how useless they are.
The destructive nature of the CEO practices is sustainable for quite some time. A transnational can suck a country dry, move on to fresh victim and come back to loot when the first recovers sufficiently. The "free trade" agreements hamstring governments who might like to act for the benefit of their countries.
The resource depletion and drastic climate change the CEO class has forced down our throats will degrade life for everyone at some point. The only people who doubt that are Bjorn Lomborg and Rush Limbaugh groupies. It doesn't trouble CEOs because they measure their wealth by how little other people have. There's nothing as nauseating as the whining of a CEO who makes a few million less than some equally vile counterpart.
Taking measures to forestall disaster doesn't necessarily entail the end of the CEO class. It would be nice, of course. But there are suitably despicable ways to go about it that will insure their comfort and power for years to come. Making the switch to alternative energy and conservation needn't mean adopting ethics. Eminent domain with lowball compensation can be used to seize property. Huge subsidies can be granted, protesters can be beaten by thugs and reviled by smug media shills. The CEOs can congratulate themselves for these humane gestures.
I couch my suggestions in these terms because appeals to humanity, enlightened self-interest and plain common sense are useless with some people. Seizing less well off people's land to place windmills where they'll ruin rivals' views and kill migratory birds - all on the taxpayer's tab - is sufficiently awful that it could become CEO policy. One could sell it to the mouthbreathers by claiming environmentalists, feminazis and sneering liberals oppose it. It would be evil! Surely that's reason enough to do it.
