The Unholy Alliance

The assaults on freedom take on many forms and come from many directions. In our fight to remain a free people we must realize it isn’t only the altruists who worship at the altar of collectivism that we need to watch out for. It also comes in the form of vicarious entanglements between big business and government.

This unholy alliance between government and big business has wreaked havoc once again on the economy and instead of being exposed for what it is it goes largely unnoticed. Government in its outrage gives the corporate elites trillions in taxpayer money while hiding its culpability behind a veil of anti-business rhetoric and lip service.

Not everyone gets off so easily however. In an attempt to muddy the water and rescue union workers in the auto industry the government threatened non-tarp lenders resisting the sale of Chrysler with the full-force of the White House press corps to ruin their reputations. They were also threatened to have the IRS sicced on them and having the Securities and Exchange Commission rip through their books looking for anything and everything to destroy them with according to Thomas E. Lauria the lawyer representing the hedge funds. Faced with these sorts of threats, these funds submitted to the White House.

The fact is the treasury department is being run by boogieman Rahm Emmanuel who is infamous for being the attack dog for the Clinton Administration. It isn’t any secret that he wants the Treasury where he can finally wield omnipotent authority over the most untouchable dept. in the U.S. government.

Such outright thuggery by Obama’s henchmen is a sure and certain sign of our descent into “Fascism” or at least it certainly gives the appearance of a dictatorship—and in some ways it is.

Economic fascism takes on many forms and sooner or later one can be sure it will morph into political fascism or at least it is another pillar of support for political fascism.

America’s form of fascism is very advanced and complex it has been woven into the fabric of society through years of legislation and court rulings. It’s really an interwoven patchwork of laws, philosophies, and relationships and as such it would be difficult if not down right impossible to undo—at least completely. Normally fascism is when private industry owns the means of production but government dictates controls over them. In America it has taken on the face of unholy matrimony between government and business where both partners protect the interests of the other–for good or for bad.

What the corporate elites get out of the marriage is conditions favorable to them that bestow protection from competitors and allows them access to easy money and easy credit to make billions of dollars. This also allows for the creation of mega-corporations that are to big to fail.

Of course this isn’t always a synergetic symbiosis by any means because what is required by the corporate elites in return for this favoritism is an obligation to lend moral support—or at least keep silent—for legislation and policies that might not always seem business friendly. They must gratuitously give financial support for political campaigns and surrender tax dollars for financing massive government expansionism—In other words the big business elites are the catalyst for the political elites to gain and maintain POWER.

Do you ever wonder why corporations give so much money to political campaigns? Have you noticed they almost always give money to both parties? It is because no matter who wins the elections it is business as usual. Some of the most devout supporters of government intervention are some of the richest capitalist elites—Warren Buffett talking head for government bailouts and Obama’s stimulus plan as one example. And despite all the anti-capitalist rhetoric that has gone on for the past fifty or so years on Capital Hill nothing really ever changes.

Let me explain, the Federal Reserve is made up of a board of directors who come form investment banking, naturally they are going to give preferential treatment to the financial markets. Although the FED is not a government entity per se it is still the purveyor of government monetary policy. The FED has been infamously implicated with every boom and bust cycle since its inception. During the recession of the late 1920’s it was the FED’s mis-correction of the markets resulting in unrealistically high interest rates and withholding money from circulation combined with war debt from WWI, and corporate protectionism through tariffs that caused the Great Depression. The FEDs culpability in today’s crisis is by creating easy money by setting unrealistically low interest rates and putting to much money in circulation. These sorts of artificial manipulations distort market forces and create bigger boom cycles but also cause bigger bust cycles.

Everyone in the business world knows about these boom and bust cycles. They are a part of the everyday economic landscape. Traditionally the way the financial sector handles these booms and bust cycles is to get in on the boom make as much money as possible and try to predict when to get out before the bust. There will be a bust because the market has to correct itself. Usually these boom and bust cycles come and go fairly quickly without much harm being done. But every now and then artificial market manipulations combine with other aberrant and unforeseen forces to create a financial tsunami. But before it washes ashore engulfing everything in its path, the financial elite, with surfboards in tow, rush into the waters hoping to catch a ride on the big kahuna wave and cash in and get out before the wave breaks with catastrophic impact upon the rocks. In other words it is an all-out hit and run speed race to make billions in a short period of time risking everything if they don’t get out in time. That’s how it works—more or less. Sometimes they don’t get out of the way fast enough. Of course government acting as a life lifeguard, backed with what must seem to them as an endless supply of taxpayer dollars, is ready and obligated to bail them out.

All anyone has to do is to take a closer look at the connections between Wall Street and Washington to see that many folks in influential positions in Washington came from Wall Street or went to work for Wall Street making huge fortunes after they left the government.

For example, President Bush’s family made their fortune in oil; Dick Cheney was a former CEO of Halliburton. Robert Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton, later became the CEO for Citigroup’s executive committee, Henry Paulson was the CEO for Goldman Sachs before becoming the Secretary of Treasury under Georg Bush. And the list goes on. Many in Congress and the Whitehouse have made fortunes in capital ventures and other forms of business.

Barrack Obama, with all his talk of “change we can believe in” and hailing himself as the savior of the working class, hasn’t changed a thing. For all his talk it is the big business elites who are getting trillions of taxpayer dollars. Of course John McCain would have done the same thing as did Bush with his TARP funds. This is why this is a non-partisan problem—after all freedom is in everyone’s best interest, right?

The question one needs to ask himself for a clearer view of things is who is benefited from government bailouts and stimulus bills Big Business or the taxpayer?

Perhaps one of the most damaging thing this unholy union does is it creates a misaligned view of capitalism which fosters fear of exploitation and anti-free market sentiments. This fear or mistrust of capitalism is the exact impetus that allows such an alliance to persist. Of course the economic model we have today is NOT capitalism. Under capitalism businesses are at the mercy of market forces that keep things streamlined and in order. Disorder brings chaos which brings more streamlining and integrity. In its current form there can be no integrity. True capitalism breeds competition, fairness in the marketplace, integrity, opportunity, choice, quality, and freedom. The mega corporations could have never grown so large that they couldn’t fail if it weren’t for government intervention.

What all the bailouts and stimulus packages really amounts to is just another wealth redistribution scheme only this time instead of taking from the rich and giving it to the poor, worse, it takes money from every taxpayer—in fact, generations of taxpayers—and redistributes it to the corporate elites. Now tell me government and business is not in bed together. Whether you call it economic fascism or a mixed economy or whatever, what it really boils down to is a pseudo–uncapitalist economy run by a handful of corporate and political elites.

Change we can believe in would be a divorce between government and big business—and other special interest elites too. We need to allow the free market to be free from the corruptive influences of this unholy marriage. This would allow the market forces to police corrupt corporations—in other words let the company, who’s CEO and Board of Directors who make bad decisions, fail and investors who throw money into risky ventures that artificial prop up values, that cause bubbles, die by the sword. In the end there will be less of a tendency towards fascism, better business models, less risk, more choices of products and services, better products at lower prices, more jobs, more opportunity for the creative entrepreneur, and fewer and less severe booms and busts.