To POLITICO: on "Anxious Democrats"

POLITICO posted a story discussing Democrats in Congress supposedly dithering over whether to tack to the left or center in the upcoming 2010 election. I posted this in the comments:

Unlike the Republicans who must choose between their base of racists, religious extremists, and economic royalists and independents who find them morally repulsive, the Democrats could easily appeal to both their progressive base and independents by implementing progressive policies that broad majorities of Americans would support:

• Reregulate Wall Street & prosecute and imprison those at the top who knowingly committed fraud.
  

• Break up any business big enough to buy or intimidate our democracy.
  

• Enact a Wall Street transaction tax steep enough to kill speculation, and force investors to place long term bets on companies they actually hope will succeed (instead of creating one pump & dump bubble after another).
  

• Base our trade policy on what is good for American families, not speculators on Wall Street.
  

• Pass health care reform that does more to help middle and working class families than it does to protect and enrich insurance companies.
  

• Enact a separation of corporation and state when it comes to foreign policy, so we don't overthrow governments or invade countries just because some oil company, banana plantation, or sweatshop owner got their panties in a knot because the leader of a country drove a hard bargain for their natural resources or raised the minimum wage. This change alone would make it harder for terrorist groups to recruit.
  

• End privatization of government functions that are invariably the result of corruption that in turn then uses our tax dollars to fund further corruption.
  

• Invest more in alternative energy than we do in invading and occupying oil producing and pipeline countries. Besides giving us an endless supply of nearly free energy, it would break the power of oil companies to dictate our foreign policy and impoverish countries like Saudi Arabia that use their oil wealth fund terrorist groups.
  

• Listen to teachers for advice about how to fix schools instead of scammers who hope to make money on privatizing them.
  

• Legalize marijuana and deal with other illegal drugs by reducing demand and through treatment--exactly the way the wealthy and politicians deal with their kids when get caught with the stuff.
  

And that is the bottom line to all progressive positions. Treat your fellow citizens the way you would members of your own family, not overly indulgent, but not as sheep to be fleeced or led to the slaughter either.

If Democrats did things like this, were guided by that principle, or even appeared to be, they would not have to worry about 2010 or any election after that.

Unfortunately, by trying to split the baby between the needs of the working and middle class and the rapacious, insatiable demands of the sociopathic trust fund babies on Wall Street, they look weak and unwilling to stand up for their core principles at best, and at worst, as corrupt as the Republicans only with the lipstick of soothing social justice platitudes instead of the shrill, sharp absolutes of the religious right.

Neither option will get the Democratic base out, nor will it inspire independents to vote for Democrats unless they decide based on a coin toss.

MODEST PROPOSAL: Pay CEO's with stock they CAN'T sell

Instead of short term bonuses, CEO's should be paid bonuses over ten or twenty years, or even over the rest of their lives with the amount varying according to the current performance of the company, and of course ending if the company goes bankrupt.

One way to do this is to give them stock with no-options: no option to sell, especially to pump and dump with insider trading.

This would encourage them to build the company for long term success and even to withstand incompetent management after they leave.

Whatever the problems are with this, it would be far superior to the current system where bonuses are given out regardless of performance, with execs acting more like parasites draining blood from their host until it's dead instead of nurturing it's real (not paper) growth and stability.

Someone will say that you can't force them to keep stock, but that is essentially what they do to employees with pensions. Then when they fuck up by giving too much money to their cronies or not hiding their bookkeeping sleight of hand well enough, their employees are left eating dog food when they retire.

The only real problem I see with this is there aren't enough MBA's who don't actually know how to make things and provide services.

These sociopathic trust fund babies didn't rake leaves and flip burgers as kids like the rest of us, but instead stole money from their mummy's purse to spend on coke and whores. Now they just steal from their shareholders and employees.

It could be that in the long run, this would restore something like a meritocracy to our financial elite that would replace the current clusterfuck of country club Caligulas.

Neutering trust fund babies will not make America safer

Given the epic financial damage caused by Wall Street and the presidency of George W. Bush, scientists and security experts have been studying how to limit the damage trust fund babies can do to America but concluded that sterilizing them will not solve the problem.

"Trust fund babies were once thought to be a benign species because of their small numbers," said forensic psychologist Craig McCann. "However, recent history has shown otherwise, and we are beginning to understand why. They grow up without having to wonder how they will pay their rent or how they will afford to take their kids to the doctor. Their nagging subconscious awareness of their pampered incompetence leads them to act out with their money asself-appointed "masters of the universe" hoping to prove their self-worth by accumulating more than their distance ancestors who actually had to work to make the original family fortune."

"Unfortunately, they have no real knowledge of how to make anything or provide any service, so they fall back on bookkeeping tricks they learned in their MBA programs to create the illusion of success. While this creates paper profits, when coupled with their lack of empathy for those who actually must work to survive, the effect on the real economy is equivalent to an ebola outbreak or dropping an atom bomb."

McCann and his colleagues thought neutering trust fund babies, possible by posing as servants at a country club and sneaking some pruning shears into the sauna, or even using scuba gear to lay in wait at the bottom of the jacuzzis, would get the job done.

There was just one problem: most trust fund babies are not the children of their legal fathers.

"We stumbled upon it quite by accident while examining a blood sample we took from one we shot with a tranquilizer dart and tagged for observation," McCann said. "We had a reference sample from some fraternity oath his grandfather had to sign with his own blood. They were not related."

To insure that this wasn't a fluke, they did paternity tests on all the samples they had taken in the past and found that 91% were not related to their legal fathers.

The culture of trust fund babies offers clues to why: most of them join exclusive secret societies in college that have homoerotic, sado-masochistic initiation rituals. Although the percentage that are actually gay is probably the same as the rest of society, since these "men" could use their wealth to buy the finest prostitutes and are used to being fawned over by less wealthy women, the furtive, forbidden violation of those initiations holds a lasting appeal to them and becomes their primary sexual outlet.

Their wives are left to mate with golf and tennis pros or even gardeners.

"While this avenue has proven to be a dead end," McCann said, "We will not give up, anymore than we would give up if a giant meteor was heading toward the earth. The fate of the world could depend on work."

Bush: image vs. reality