I cannot imagine a more useful idiot than John Boehner. After he and his minions lied to us, repeatedly, to our face, about repealing Obamacare et al. we gave him the biggest Republican majority in decades. We also gave him a Republican Senate, in fact we gave him everything he needed to put the brakes on all things Obama. And how were we repaid? He betrayed us at every turn that's how. Last year he took the budget (and Obamacare) off the table so fast people were running around like shellshocked Dresden survivors wondering what the hell just happened. Now he wants to give Obama more unchecked power beyond the reach of voters or our Constitution.
What's happening you might ask? The Chamber of Commerce is what's happening. People tend to think of the Chamber as a collection of small businesses, you know, your locally owned Ace Hardware kinda thing. Not so my friend. The Chamber is JP Morgan on the phone barking orders at Senators. It's the big banks pushing us into World War I so the British will hand over Palestine. It's the reason LBJ went to Congress in 1939 without a pot to piss in and left thirty years later worth 50 million dollars. It's Bill Clinton's $500,000 speaking fees, his Gulfstream and his blowjobs at 30,000 feet.
The Chamber is not about capitalism as we understand it. It's not about national sovereignty or the rights of man or border security or any of the major issues of the day. Its about power and profit. It's about accessing cheap labor and capital, keeping government interference to a minimum and ringing that Goddamned cash register. It's about making money as fast as possible any and every way you can. It's about controlling markets and reducing risk. What it's NOT about is competition, and it's CERTAINLY NOT about countries or people or "so called" rights.
A lot of folks accuse me of some sort of neo-Marxism when I talk like this. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm down with the profit thing. I get it. But big business has no more to do with the libertarian, laissez faire view of capitalism (the most essential component of freedom) than an Allis Chalmers tractor has to do with the Daytona 500. As Milton Friedman said, "The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system". The Chamber of Commerce has no more interest in free enterprise capitalism than Caitlyn Jenner has in Katy Perry's tits.
So, what Boehner and company are doing is setting up a system where greed goes unchecked. A new corporate world order run by the likes of Soros and Buffett, and make no mistake, Big Business loves Big Government (and vis versa). A system whereby the 10% at the top control all the money and resources, where there's no upward mobility and everybody (apart from the 10%) have their EBT cards and government healthcare. In a nutshell, a system run by and for large corporations.
This isn't capitalism and this isn't freedom. This is power and control. But what the hell, let's keep talking about Confederate Battle flags and gay marriage (OH LOOK, THERE'S SOMETHING SHINY!) while these bought and paid for politicians give away our future to gangsters.
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Apart from the weird theory about World War I and Palestine, I actually agree with everything you said (even if I might not have used those actual words). Here's a point you do not make, at least directly: Government regulation of business (including in such matters as trade) with very rare exceptions favors large competitors at the expense of small ones. Exhibit A in recent years, the Dodd-Frank law, which has hammered local banks and given a huge edge for U.S. share to the money center banks. This happens for two completely obvious and predictable reasons. First, the big firms are in a much better position to get their points across to the legislators and regulators. They have more and more highly paid executives who can donate money to politicians, and they can afford in-house experts who can "educate" legislative staff on the details of their business. Second, most regulatory compliance amounts to a fixed cost. If you have to reprogram your systems to generate new information and send that information to the federal government, the cost of those systems changes is often not much different if you are JP Morgan or Main Street Community Bank. Indeed, the big bank can often make the changes with fixed cost staff, and Main Street needs to hire a consultant at variable cost. Regardless, compliance cost becomes a much larger part of the income statement in a small firm than a big one, and that puts the small firm out of business. Everybody knows this, it seems, except bizarrely naive liberals who love both government regulation of business and purport to favor small businesses over large "corporations." Those two positions are almost always in conflict.
Not theory, history. Google Balfour Declaration.
Weird theory? Wow, I'm a little surprised at that. The Balfour Agreement "His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." is not explicit but it wasn't meant to be.
Maybe you need to research the subject.
I know what the Balfour Declaration was. It is a weird and giant stretch to position it as "the big banks pushing us in to World War I so the British will hand over Palestine." The Balfour Declaration, and British diplomatic strategy during World War I in general, were definitely oriented around getting the United States in to the fight. The British ran a huge anti-German propaganda machine in the United States all during the war, which explains why my grandmother, who was born in 1900, regarded the three most evil people in history as Hitler, Stalin (both plausible) and Kaiser Wilhelm. Wha? Because propaganda. And the British were probably hoping to win over pro-Zionist people in FDRs cabinet, too. But the theory that "big banks" had any outsized influence on us getting in to the war is a ginormous stretch.
Gee I thought this was common knowledge. Ok, a short history lesson for my Iowa Hawkeye friend....
A couple of years in the Allied Powers were losing the war to the Central Powers. The Italians couldn't whip their dicks but the Turks were doing well in the Middle East (in spite of Lawrence of Arabia). On the Western Front the French were throwing down their rifles and/or mutinying (who woulda figured that?) and the Brits were running low on ammunition, supplies, resources, money etc. due in part to the U-boats kicking ass and taking names (of sinking ships). Haig sucked, Petain was an idiot and Russia was out of the war (thank you Nikki).The Allied Powers were six months at most from losing.
Now...the story goes that Baron von Rothschild (of the M. A. von Rothschild und Söhne bankers in Frankfurt...that's in Germany) cut a deal with the Brits. We'll get on the phone to our pals in the States and bring the Americans into the war, plus we'll get you a nice Gold AMEX courtesy of the American taxpayer if you just give us Palestine, you know, after we run the Turks out. The American bankers were not opposed even though Wilson was adamant about staying out of the war. But damn! War is so profitable.
So there you go, the Germans were betrayed by Germans, albeit Jewish international banking Germans. A young dispossessed corporal named Adolf Hitler would unfortunately bear a terrible grudge, and you know the rest.
But you're probably right, it's all bullshit.
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