Mammon category archive
A Picture Is Worth, the Art of the Con Dept. 0
Dick Polman comments on the notion that you can “run the government like a business”:
I marveled at this naivete for two reasons: Trump was a terrible role model, having been bailed out of six bankruptcies by a dwindling number of indulgent investors; and there’s no historical record of any businessman successfully running America as a business.
The sole career businessman ever elected to the presidency was mining magnate Herbert Hoover. He was touted in 1928 as a problem-solver who’d bring his engineering skills to the public sector. You know what happened next. The stock market crashed, and as the Great Depression deepened, Hoover made things worse because he couldn’t communicate, cajole, compromise, or inspire. He fatally lacked the political skills required of a president.
More Polman at the link.
Image via PoliticalProf.
Monetizing the Public Good 0
Virginia’s previous governor was a Republican. Accordingly, one of his core beliefs, as illustrated through his actions, was that there is no such thing as the public good.
When he looked at a big pile of public good, he saw dollar signs, something to be monetized, not something to be husbanded with stewardship. He saw the bridges and tunnels which for years had been free to cross and heard the ring of cash registers (remember cash registers?). He imposed tolls and sold the tolling rights to a private firm for 70 years because God forbid that government should provide services to citizens, when instead it can bleed them dry.
In a long report in today’s issue, my local rag documents the toll of the tolls. Here’s a snippet from the story of one the persons interviewed for the report (emphasis added).
Takeisha Reynolds owes more than $15,000 for commuting to a job that paid $11,000 last year.
She bought an E-ZPass transponder three years ago, when Elizabeth River Crossings began tolling the underwater tubes that link her home in Portsmouth to work in Norfolk. But she wasn’t making enough money to fund the account. A few months later, she faced a choice: tame the flurry of tolls, or pay for groceries, gas and rent.
The ERC invoices piled up fast. What started as a stack of small bills – $10, $20, $30 – became an impossible debt.
“It was already hard for me without tolls to pay for regular bills. Then you put this on me and tell me I have to pay this or I can’t go to work,” Reynolds said as she sifted through a drawer stuffed with statements. “I’m just stuck.”
Words fail me.
Fly the Fiendly Skies 0
Trumpling the public good, this time in the air:
This proposal illustrates once more that, in Republican World, there is no such thing as the common good.
Follow the link for more.
Out of the Woodwork, Origins Issue 0
Update: Edited to fix the goofs.
Lee Camp notes that, during Trump’s campaign, white supremacists, white nationalists, and wannabe robber barons were not evident in the Trumpian entourage (though garden-variety rascists and bigots certainly were). He wonders where they came from. The relevant section is the first 10 minutes or so in the video (warning: language).
The Medicine Show 0
Reka Basu recounts a recent experience with U. S. medical care. She has been dealing with a dermatalogical problem that has cost her hundreds of dollars and many hours with the U. S. Medical-Industrial Complex. Then she was introduced to a cure in an unexpected way:
Actually, a beautician giving me a facial in an Indian beauty parlor had come up with it during my recent annual visit to India. Seeing my elbows, the woman dispatched a pedicurist to the drugstore next door to get me an over-the-counter ointment she said would bring signs of improvement in a week. And it did.
I bring this up not because my skin problems are of much consequence. On the contrary. If a beauty parlor employee can recognize symptoms and suggest a treatment that works after two doctors, a biopsy and several medications couldn’t, it suggests a larger problem with our profit-obsessed medical care system and pharmaceutical industry.
Follow the link for her theory as to why that particular over-the-counter salve is not available in the United States.
Note:
If you are using an adblocker, the Des Moines Register may ask you to turn it off. I don’t use an adblocker, but I do use NoScript in conjunction with a hosts file, so I needed to tell NoScript to “allow all” scripts on the page. I’m am quite willing to let legitimate newspaper websites think that I’m reading their ads. Newspapers need all the help they can get.
“Running the Government Like a Business” Translated Is “Giving America the Business” 0
Make no mistake, we’re being Enroned.
