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Conservatism’s Overdue Divorce From Corporatism & Its Sleaziest Characters
Ace of Spades HQ ^ | April 30, 2021 | Buck Throckmorton

Posted on 05/01/2021 6:57:12 AM PDT by Bratch

Conservatism’s Overdue Divorce From Corporatism & Its Sleaziest Characters

[Buck Throckmorton]

Why is Target’s CEO becoming such a prominent advocate for woke, left wing politics?

Perhaps it’s because he is looting the company, and his becoming a prominent social justice warrior is an attempt to distract and seek protection from the redistributionists on the left.

One of the great things about the political realignment going on right now is that conservatives like me no longer need to hold our noses and defend capitalism’s robber barons and parasites, just because we are all opposed to socialism. We conservatives are still very much in favor of free enterprise, but with corporate America now aligned with socialists on virtually every left-wing social issue - and actually engaging government to snuff out their smaller competition - corporatists will not have me defending them if the left sends them to the gulags, figuratively or otherwise.

Just because of my passionate opposition to socialism, I used to try to defend vulture capitalists like Mitt Romney, who gutted companies for fun and profit. Likewise the Wall Street investment bankers who pushed job-destroying debt on companies run by CEOs who could be seduced by confidence men in fancy suits. I tried to defend outsourcing as preferable to bankruptcies, but every job sent overseas just sent more wealth to the C-Suites. When I saw private-equity groups buy successful small businesses and then fire all the employees, I tried to convince myself that these people were not evil, but that they were just the visible faces of capitalism’s creative destruction.

I ultimately realized that these are people that cannot be defended. They prosper by deliberately inflicting harm on good people and organizations. They don’t create wealth, they re-allocate it to themselves, and leave a trail of destruction in their wake. I am glad that they are on the other team now.

Some years ago, my wife worked for a prominent company that imposed a massive pay cut on most employees so as “to save the company.” As our household took a pay cut, she said her employer was evil. At the time, I tried to defend the company and its executives, because a pay cut was preferable to her losing her job altogether. But almost immediately after the pay cut went into effect, the executives of that corporation showered 7-figure and 8-figure bonuses on themselves “for saving the company” and as “retention bonuses.” And shortly after that the company went into bankruptcy reorganization anyway. In retrospect, the wage cut was just a delaying tactic by the executives. It gave them time and an excuse to loot tens of millions of dollars from the company before a bankruptcy judge could prevent them from accessing the remaining cash in the bank. My wife was right – they were truly evil people.

One more thing on CEO pay, libertarian apologists will mumble that a business can compensate its CEO however much it wants, and further, that it’s not really salary because he merely exercised stock options. Uh huh. To which I can counter-argue that if a business is going to stick its nose into politics affecting me, then I can seek to impose laws and regulations on that business to cripple the CEO’s ability to loot a publicly-traded company. And – if it’s just “stock options” and not real pay, then every single Target employee can also receive $77 million of this fairy dust compensation too, right? Of course not. Target’s CEO looted $77 million of the company’s capital, and there’s not near enough capital to do that for every employee.

There are truly evil people in in the business world, just like there are in any profession. And right now, our corporate class is led by the worst of them. Woke corporatists are like male feminists, their left-wing advocacy can serve as a mask to hide the awful character of who they really are.

(buck.throckmorton @ protonmail dot com)

Posted by: Open Blogger at 03:32 PM


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: corporatism; cronycapitalism; leftists; ohjustshutup
The more things change, the more they remain the same.

1 posted on 05/01/2021 6:57:12 AM PDT by Bratch
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To: Bratch

Interlocking boards of directors are a major source of this problem. The group-think is that they have to pay ‘X’ to ‘attract’ a CEO with the skills to manage their company. In reality it’s more like NFL owners throwing money at college QB’s in the hopes of getting the next Tom Brady. All they succeed in doing is bidding up the price of mediocre QB’s for everybody and the league suffers.


2 posted on 05/01/2021 7:12:53 AM PDT by Tallguy
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To: Bratch

We’re dealing with multinational businesses that are not ‘USA USA USA’ anymore but rather they hate Americans and only bring out the flag and slogans just so as Americans buy their products and services.


3 posted on 05/01/2021 7:13:00 AM PDT by Bigtigermike
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To: Bratch

‘Target CEO Brian Cornell says George Floyd “could have been one of my Target team members”

Good to know that target hires junkies.


4 posted on 05/01/2021 7:14:19 AM PDT by dynachrome ("I will not be reconstructed, and I do not give a damn.")
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To: Bratch

Unregulated big business is just as dangerous as unregulated big government


5 posted on 05/01/2021 7:14:53 AM PDT by Sir_Humphrey ( I wiIl not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!)
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To: Bratch

Corporatism and globalism are the same thing now.


6 posted on 05/01/2021 7:16:50 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: Bratch
Well now it is officially complete. There is no longer any segment of American society controlled by conservatives. Yes conservatives have a TV station here, a politician there, a business over there, but the liberals now control everything.

It's refreshing that we no longer have to drink the libertarian Kool-Aid, but now all we got left is some fictional "silent majority" that is being overwhelmed by millions of new immigrants coming across the border.

7 posted on 05/01/2021 7:29:32 AM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear (This is not a tagline.)
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To: Bigtigermike

Right now there are more Americans over the age of 80 than under the age of 2. Any CEO with half a brain knows that his company’s future probably lies somewhere else.


8 posted on 05/01/2021 7:29:40 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("And once in a night I dreamed you were there; I canceled my flight from going nowhere.")
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To: Bratch

Go watch Tucker’s take down of Frank Luntz if you want to see how bad it is, and the cure.


9 posted on 05/01/2021 7:30:12 AM PDT by G Larry (Force the Universities to use their TAX FREE ENDOWMENTS to pay off Student loan debt!!!)
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To: Bratch

Haven’t set foot in Target since they decided to let men use the women’s bathroom.


10 posted on 05/01/2021 7:31:11 AM PDT by lizma2
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To: dynachrome

Target has free TVs during riots.


11 posted on 05/01/2021 7:43:44 AM PDT by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)
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To: Tallguy

Yes, and education. All of our CEOs, judges, and journalists pass through a small number of elite schools.

That process makes sure they conform to the same liberal worldview.


12 posted on 05/01/2021 8:02:07 AM PDT by Renfrew
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To: who_would_fardels_bear
Well now it is officially complete. There is no longer any segment of American society controlled by conservatives. Yes conservatives have a TV station here, a politician there, a business over there, but the liberals now control everything.

That's what happens when the (leftist) federal bureaucracy operates using the organized crime model.

"Kiss the ring or swim with the fishes."


13 posted on 05/01/2021 8:05:50 AM PDT by Bratch
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To: Bratch

Yes, today there are many large corporations that are no longer advocates of true free enterprise. They feel THEIR corporations are future-secure in their alliance with big government. Yes, they will be allowed to survive and thrive as long as, like with the Nazis, they merge their goals with the political goals of the ever-increasing big government.

Can automakers really build electric cars as equally affordable with gasoline/diesel powered cars? No. But they will do like Elon Musk and con their customers with the taxpayer subsidies the customer can get, for now, until they allow the government to push gasoline cars out of existence, the subsidies are gone, and everyone has no choice but the more expensive electric vehicles.

Energy? Same thing. Instead of bucking the “green” new deals, and keeping YOUR ENERGY COSTS down, the fossil fuels corporations are adjusting their plans to make the “green” new deals still profitable for them too. Your utility companies have been doing that for years now.

They have all abandoned your finances for the sake of kowtowing to the political commissars political agendas.


14 posted on 05/01/2021 8:09:08 AM PDT by Wuli
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To: dynachrome

Junkies and armed robbers who are not above assaulting pregnant women.


15 posted on 05/01/2021 8:15:29 AM PDT by Cecily
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To: Bratch
if a business is going to stick its nose into politics affecting me, then I can seek to impose laws and regulations

We have the power of not shopping there--and the right to stick our own noses into politics--and the corporation guys have the same right. That's in the Constitution, and it's part of liberty.

But Federal regulation on businesses is nowhere in the Constitution. And don't be fooled about what regulation does. It doesn't hold back any of the problems you (we) would like to fix. It causes them.

What winds up happening is that because of regulations, large corporations make donations to corrupt politicians in both parties, who therefore confect complex rules that put smaller, upstart competitors of the big corps at a disadvantage. If you're small, the bureaucracy required is prohibitive and distracting. Financial, safety, labor, "equal opportunity" hiring, and environmental regs are all used in this way--or have this effect, which works out the same.

The regulatory agencies--including the health, safety, and financial ones--have often been found to focus on the pesky competitors of the big boys. The competitors' focus goes down, legal expenses skyrocket, and their good name in customers' eyes goes into the toilet when everyone, including WSJ, the fake-news TV, etc., report on the regulatory raids.

This came to light in a spectacular way when Bill Clinton sleazed into office with the support of Tyson Chicken, and one competitor of Tyson's after another was raided by the FDA, lost market share, and then was acquired by . . . Tyson Chicken.

This corruption, which is unavoidably created by having government regulating business, is everywhere in Washington, and is the money that drives the Deep State. It's one reason why we shouldn't try to root it out with more regulation. The corporate pigs will just use their donations to shape the new rules in their favor once again.

The other evil of corporate regulation is also inevitable: the chilling effect it has on innovation, which in itself protects the corporate pigs from inroads by competitors.

What we need to reclaim our Constitution. The Big Pigs have just been using their owned "regulators" against us, and if that weapon is available to them, there's no way to prevent them from using it.

16 posted on 05/01/2021 8:26:54 AM PDT by SamuraiScot
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To: dynachrome

Don't you just love woke, white, multi-millionaires?


17 posted on 05/01/2021 12:41:10 PM PDT by Tommy Revolts
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To: Sir_Humphrey

The lines between corporations and governments are blurrier than ever.


18 posted on 05/01/2021 12:43:35 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Bratch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35DSdw7dHjs

“You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples.....”


19 posted on 05/01/2021 12:45:10 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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