“Why?” I said. “You get rich, privileged people in a position to make money by screwing over other people, it’s going to happen. It always has happened.”
If there’s one thing I learned back when I was a fraud investigator, it’s that there’s a class of people who don’t actually need the money they’re stealing — it just tastes better when they steal it. They get off on it.
As much as I despise the weak-kneed, corporate ass-kissing Democrats, I hate the Republicans even more for bullying their way into the front of the economic policy debate and forcing bad policies that just don’t work.
They don’t care. They’re Republicans, they don’t have to!
Not only is that provably wrong, it’s also stupid. Because sooner or later, we’ll have another bad flu epidemic, and you really don’t want sick people serving your food.
I was reading something yesterday about happiness, and it said they found that people got more long-term happiness from spending money on doing things or going places, rather than buying things. I agree! But there’s some interactive overlap there — namely, buying things you do things with.
For instance, my guitars make me happy because I like to play them. My books make me happy when I read them, and music makes me happy when I get to listen. Oh, and the art hanging on my walls still makes me very happy when I look at it. And it makes me happy to have a reliable car, because I’ve spent so many years without one.
Oh, and the computer. Well, tools of the trade and all that. But I go for cheap and practical, rather than trendy and cool.
But the other stuff? I could live without it. I’m not one of those people who thinks my life would be perfect if only I could get a new dining room set. (Although, you know, dishes.)
But generally speaking, I don’t care much about owning things unless you can do stuff with them.
Andy Stern, in a matter of months, has traveled as far as is possible from the labor movement, now toiling for a corporate raider who stands for everything labor fights against, HuffPost Hill reported today. He sits on the board or SIGA Technologies, a biowarfare company largely owned by corporate raider Ron Perelman, and was on the happy end of 25,000 stock options in June. If the HHS approves a huge contract SIGA is applying for, those options will be worth an awful lot of money. (They already are, by HuffPost Hill’s standards. But if SIGA gets the contract, they’ll be worth real money.)
But it gets worse! While Stern was head of SEIU, the union surprised the labor/capital world by endorsing the buyout of a Perelman company by the Blackstone Group. The cofounder of Blackstone is Pete Peterson, the guy waging a deficit jihad. Stern now sits on the deficit commission as one of the progressive voices. Ugh.
