14 November 2008

The Ministry of Bright Lines

The LEKC, learnèd elders of Kennebunkport-Crawford, have met in secret conclave and resolved upon a whole new Protocol (Number CVIII) that nobody ever heard of before. In the face of yet another Endkrise des Kapitalismus and, more significantly, yet another electoral Dolchstoß from the direction of their General Hamilton’s "great beast," it has seemed good to Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology Spirituique Sancto to lay down the following "bright line" [1]:

[Beast fans] have decided to follow an earlier $25 billion loan [to GM/Ford/Chrysler] with a $50 billion bailout, which would inevitably be followed by more billions later, because if these companies are not permitted to go bankrupt now, they never will be. This is a different sort of endeavor than the $750 billion bailout of Wall Street. That money was used to save the financial system itself. It was used to save the capital markets on which the process of creative destruction depends. Granting immortality to Detroit’s Big Three does not enhance creative destruction. It retards it. It crosses a line, a bright line. It is not about saving a system; there will still be cars made and sold in America. It is about saving politically powerful corporations.

Thus Señorito D. Brooks expounds Protocol CVIII.


Ministry of Bright Lines

Farther down the Great Scale of Wingnuts, the thug esteemed neocomrade C. Krauthammer extemporizes from what can only be the same LEKC talkin’ points as follows:

Finally, the outlines of a coherent debate on the federal bailout. (...) Now clarity is emerging. The fault line is the auto industry bailout. The Democrats are pushing hard for it. The White House is resisting.

Underlying the policy differences is a philosophical [sic] divide. The Bush administration sees the $700 billion rescue as an emergency measure to save the financial sector on the grounds that finance is a utility. No government would let the electric companies go under and leave the country without power. By the same token, government must save the financial sector lest credit dry up and strangle the rest of the economy. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is willing to stretch the meaning of "bank" by extending protection to such entities as American Express. But fundamentally, he sees government as saving institutions that deal in money, not other stuff.

Democrats have a larger canvas, with government intervening in other sectors of the economy to prevent the cascade effect of mass unemployment leading to more mortgage defaults and business failures (as consumer spending plummets), in turn dragging down more businesses and financial institutions, producing more unemployment, etc.

Neither of these ideokiddies can think its way out of a paper bag economically, which backhandedly explains why the vulgarian C. Krauthammer is a good deal more perspicuous than Master Davey, the amateur sociologue. The former, knowin’ its own limitations, has not ventured to diverge nearly so widely from the Urtext of Protocol CVIII as handed to it by the agitprop arm.

Anyhow, the essence of Protocol CVIII is plain enough in both versions: Finanzkapital has been superofficially declared to be a ‘utility’ whereas manufacturing is something other and something lesser. And a ‘utility’ will have been superofficially defined as (approximately) "Whatever General von Ludendorff at the Federal Reserve and Marshall von Hindenburg at the Treasury decree to be worthy of Ausschöpfung."

Though the Big Party thug C. Krauthammer speaks -- asinus ad lyram! -- of philosophy, neither he nor little Davey can have noticed that the true locus of discrimination is located more in the Hindenburgo-Ludendorffian internal forum than in the former real world. Sound Aristotelians like thee and me will notice that point, however, Mr. Bones, and thereby avoid waste of time on any future verbiage the neocomrades may churn out about the Platonic Idea of a Utility. Let Elder Bernanke and Elder Paulson play that parlour game, a game which really makes sense only inside OnePercenterly covens and conventicles. The rest of the Crawfordite pack will not, of course, be wantin’ to admit even to themselves that they have abdicated all responsibility, and shoved poor Kaiser Georg XLIII into a broom closet, and bowed their own necks to the Hindenburgo-Ludendorffian Juggernaut. So there must, for the comfort, be some pretence that the salvatores Borussiæ do not just dictate what ‘utility’ is now to mean in the holy Homeland.

Decent political grown-ups can dispense with that folderol, apart from pointing out to one another that a strong odour of Goldman Sachs is likely to pervade whatever the gruesome twosome come up with. Possibly we might also congratulate OnePercenterdom upon developin’ a clear chain of command, even if they fuzz things up for themselves by confusin’ it with a bright line of discrimination. I daresay the lemmin’s could call that chain a ‘utility’ too, if they like: it is certainly very useful to know for sure who must be obeyed.

This brings us to a rather crude but important question, namely, "What is to become of Protocol CVIII once the politicians preferred by the ninety-nine percent take over next year? Hindenburg and Ludendorff can get their broom-closet Emperor to veto all anti-utilitarian schemes for another ten weeks or so, but what then?"

The thug C. Krauthammer, who sticks to his talkin’ points as issued, says nothin’ about that issue at all, from which one may infer with reasonable confidence that the Urtext of Protocol CVIII does not mention this disagreeable and alarmin’ subject.

Little Davey Brooks tapdances around it with reminiscences of Pol. Sci. 101 that do not seem very pertinent, let alone persuasive:

... [T]he larger principle is over the nature of America’s political system. Is this country going to slide into progressive corporatism, a merger of corporate and federal power that will inevitably stifle competition, empower corporate and federal bureaucrats and protect entrenched interests? Or is the U.S. going to stick with its historic model: helping workers weather the storms of a dynamic economy, but preserving the dynamism that is the core of the country’s success.

Mussolinianity will ensure, of course, only if Obama Pelosi Reid et Frères are permitted to bail out non-utilities. Thee notice, Mr. Bones, that their little laddie at the New York Times Company is dressin’ up in sheep’s clothin’ again, pretendin’ to be a Century XIX/XII populist who wants to make ‘corporation’ a naughty word once more, and ‘competition’ the God word to end all God words. Not an impressive shtyk, but it does seem to be Davey’s own. I cannot think of any reason why Goldman and Sachs and Hindeburg and Ludendorff should take any interest in it.

Master Brooks natters about "creative destruction" a little, but his heart is located a good deal farther back in yesteryear than the vogue of CD and VD, "voodoo economics." Davey is a very old-fashioned corporation flack who wants the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 restored as the cuttin’ edge of Modern Times.

Well, his private-sectorian project possesses at least the merit of quaintness. Of course even if the holy Homeland had elected the Flaky Flyboy with 80 Big Party Solons and 400 Big Party Congresscritters, we would certainly never have reverted to the bucolic daydreams of Neocomrade D. Brooks. There is no point in digressing further in that silly direction.

When it comes down to how the Learnèd Elders of OnePercenterdom are actually goin’ to throw monkey wrenches into the Mussolinitarian schemes of Obama Pelosi Reid, little Davey has no more to say about it than the thug Krauthammer has to say about it. Both kiddies give a sort of free preview of comin’ attractions, the first reverberations of how they themselves will be barkin’ and bellowin’ in the months to come. But unless we madly suppose that the mere emission of such Otherparty noises will cause America’s party to grind to a halt and bring back Hindenburg and Ludendorff, the kiddies have no practical notions of any value tactical, operational or strategic.

Was Protocol CVIII intended to have any such practical value?

There is no way to tell, really, since we do not have the actual text, nor even the text of the suggested Bernanke-Paulson talkin’ points. One can, however, say that it is extremely unlikely that Protocol CVIII will have much practical effect: one envisions King Canute down at the beach firmly advising the Atlantic Ocean about the newly promulgated superofficial definitions of ‘ebb’ and ‘flow’. Or the original H&L twosome attempting to redefine their way to a Hun victory on the Western Front in 1918. Fun stuff, but not exactly serious.

Members and well-wishers of the Ninety-Nine Percent Club can wallow in unserious Schadenfreude about the intellectual absurdity of the Goldman Sachs bozos and their paid apologists pretendin’ that Finanzkapital is a Platonic utility, whereas transportation does not make the cut, and manufacturing anything concrete EGREGIOUSLY does not make the cut. But there is nothing tactical or operational or strategic in that either, not when nine Homelanders in ten are prevented by their Big Management Ideology wombschoolin’ (or by some other brain disease) from taking any interest in so high-falutin’ a question, and then, of the remaining ten, only one ten-thousandth of one Homelander is sufficiently free of toxic partisanship to attend to both sides of such a debate fairly and deliver a verdict strictly on the merits. [2]


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[1] The senior neocomrades have decided to relabel their ‘protocol’ product line for marketeerin’ reasons we need not go into here.


[2] There is perhaps some scant smidgen of a nonexcluded middle ground, as for instance the reflection that this ‘utility’ of the cuttin’-edge OnePercenters is a movin’ target rather than a proper Idea of Plato. ATT used to qualify, and more than qualify -- telephone service was once the very model of a warrantable moden monopoly. Yet Change and Decay have befallen Ma Bell, which rather makes one wonder if anybody can be altogether safe.

(( "Remember: gold has NEVER been worth zero!" What could be more utilitarian than that? I ask thee, Mr. Bones! ))

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