As loyal readers know, I try to the greatest extent possible to stay away fom direct political commentary except as it relates to finance or bankingand to the extent that those comments might be more negative towards the Dems than the Repubs, it is, I think, because since I started this blog the former have been running thigs and it is they, therefore, who bear the brunt of critical comment. Not today. Today is outright political commentary and because it is Friday it is of course the fault of Little Paulie Krugman and his piece in the Times today.
If you read the Times and I have since I was able to read (that was at a very young age...I used to be smart) you look for a guy like Little Paulie because the Times is a heavy slog day-to-day, it not having any funny pages and Little Paulie makes up for that. But these days one has to read Little Paulie, for as the Times is the Procurer in chief for all ideas Liberal and Democratic (forgive the redundancy) on the political scene, Little Paulie is the head pimp on the financial sidewalk (can I say that)? So when Little Paulie comes up with a new one, take notice. You will be hearing a lot more about it in the future.
The new one today was Elizabeth Warren and upon reading that I said , "Whow!" Now Ms. Warren is running for the Dem nomination for candidacy for the Senate Seat previously held by Ted Kennedy and lost to the Repubs last year. One would not expect to see Little Paulie supporting one Dem against another but there he was urging all to check out some "eloquent" comments made by Ms. Warren in some campaign speech, so I got on the internet and did.
I wouldn't catagorize anything Ms. Warren said as eloquent but it was a good stump speech. Little paulie quotes Ms. Warren directly as having said, "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody" Remarkably, Ms. Warren was gender specific; I guess she doesn't believe women get rich...except for her...but I digress. Litlle Paulie then gets a bit fuzzy as he usually does when he doesn't want the reader to get all the facts, a preferred trait of his to the occasional half-truth or outright whopper that he sometimes relates. He continues that Ms. Warren, "pointed out that the rich can only get rich thanks to the "social contract" that provides a decent, functioning society in which they can prosper." In fact Ms. Warren went considerably further. In her mind the "factory owner" is protect by a police force, ships his good on rail and roads, gets water and electricity, all paid for by the government so that factory owner is in partnership with the government. The fact that the factory owner has chosen along with the trucking guys, the rail guys, the water guys and the electricity guys to pay taxes to the government so the government can do these things making the government an employee rather than a partner seems to have eluded both of them. Then again they think the factory guys exists for the government. That's the dopy, but not the important part.
What Little Paulie left out because it is too soon in the process, is Ms. Wassen's remarkable idea that since the factory owner and the government are in partnership, the former should pay in advance for all the things he gets which enable him to become rich. You have to sneak up on the folks with an idea like this one. Not even The Leader dares broach an idea like this at this time because it would immediatly be catagorized for what it is: a wealth tax--and that might not go over too well in the present political enviorment. But there it is and Little Paulie and the Times have now put their imprimatur...perhaps an inappropriate designation...on the idea. As I said, we shall hear more of it. Be on the look-out.
The world lost one of the really good guys the other day and I and a number of his friends are to see him off to his final rest in the next couple of days. I'll be back on Tuesday.
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