Of Romans And Yankees

Almost 30 years ago Ronald Reagan, the great budget-balancer who never balanced one, stated his utmost contempt for man’s effort to govern his affairs by stating the maxim of his conservative Republicans: “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.”

Let’s remember he is the one who appointed Alan Greenspan chairman of the Federal Reserve, who believed that free-market capitalism and the philosopher-kings of Wall Street would rule America with compassionate conservatism and charitable empathy for the poor.

After 35 years of Reagan racist politics centered around black “welfare queens driving new Cadillacs to pick up their welfare checks,” and speechifying at KKK-ruled Philadelphia, Mississippi and lily-white Bob Jones University, the Republicans have come up a cropper.

They learned from the Atwaters and the Roves how to win elections and from the Three Stooges, Klem Kiddlehopper, and Brownie the Arabian Horse specialist how to govern. Why didn’t they worry about governing well?

Although they controlled the presidency and Congress for much of the last 28 years, they seemed indifferent to governing unless it was to destroy the environment for their own bank accounts.
Jack Welch, head of General Electric at the time and the favorite of Wall Street and the free marketeers (not to be confused with the Three Musketeers who were all for one and one for all), started the trek of tears for the American workingman by exclaiming in the 1980’s, “We should put all of our manufacturing plants on barges so they can be towed to the cheapest labor around the globe.”

His philosophy has brought us to a gigantic fork in the road. Now that the rich, created by inheritance, tax cuts, luck, Cayman Island office postboxes, deregulation, convenient “bankrupts,” and shipping good jobs overseas, have essentially destroyed the middle class in the last decade, they have started to eat each other with gusto, combining selfish greed and a total lack of a sense of community.

It even has a name—the Madoff Syndrome. Some billionaires who have lost millions have even thrown themselves under trains.

Now That We Have “Socialized” Banking And Investment, Wall Street, And Manufacturing, Why Don’t We Add Medicine To The List?

In 2007—just before mortgages ended up as toilet paper—banks, businesses, and other organizations trying to get in on 29 percent interest rates sent out 5.2 billion credit-card solicitations to Americans.

That comes to an average of 17 noisy, fraudulent, small-print pitches for every living American. Perhaps some banker can explain why that made sense.

Now that Lurch and his economic team have turned into socialists trying to save their free marketeer buddies from jumping off the GM Tower in Detroit, it’s amazing how quickly they are trying to regulate the jumps to five per hour. Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson, who recently said, “I’ve never been antiregulation.

I’ve always believed that raw, unregulated capitalism doesn’t work,” is now pushing socialist economic theory espoused by Lenin, Castro, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and—My God—the French.

When Paulson left Goldman Sachs so he could save the world from economic disaster he was worth $600 million as a free marketeer. Now he is becoming a socialist. Some Republicans must be saying: “Where’s Samuel Joe—the Plumber—Wurzelbacher when you really need him?”

Whether all these socialist bailout programs will actually work will depend upon how much money the middle class—what is left of it—spends over the next couple of years. Cars, TVs, and refrigerators can last a long time.

Cubans are still driving GM relics that are over 50 years old. I still am amazed that spam networks still make a profit from e-mail if they get one sale from 12.5 million solicitations!

It might help everyone if medicine were “socialized” just like banking and Wall Street functions are. The insurance and drug industries never seem to learn anything from their greed until it’s too late. We can’t bargain for better drug prices because the industry bribed Congress not to allow it.

Even the conservative Wall Street Journal noted the other day that the ten largest prescription drug insurers were raising their average premiums 31 percent in 2009 with individual increases greater than 60 percent!

Should Rich Republicans Undertip Service Workers Because They Voted For Obama?

The Republicans have been screaming bloody murder about socialized medicine for decades to protect the excessive income of doctors and insurance companies. Let’s take a look at one case. An “insured”

Vermonter who required neurosurgery couldn’t get a straight answer out of his American hospital on the total costs of his surgery, only that insurance would not cover all of it.

He decided to get a second opinion from a Canadian hospital right across the border. Not only could he schedule his surgery earlier in Canada, he saved his insurance company about $30,000—which they happily paid.

Republicans are now interviewing six candidates to find a chairman for the Republican National Committee. I don’t think they will win the 2010 election if they follow the advice of some of their conservative bloggers.

They are recommending that wealthy Republicans “undertip” waiters, maids, gardeners, and other service workers as a way to express their displeasure with Barack Obama’s election.

Are Yankees The Descendants Of Roman Gladiators?

Although Rome “blew it” almost 2,000 years ago there are a few remarkable parallels between Rome and today’s Washington, D.C. Both fought wars by hiring mercenaries from the poor and the provinces to fight them.

Slaves from poor countries worked for the rich in labor-intensive jobs, whether in vineyards and farmyards or hotels, restaurants, gardening, and meatpacking plants.

But what stands out for me is the culture of celebrities used as the glue keeping the people’s minds off real problems. Gladiators were the celebrities of the Roman Empire, some recruited from criminals, prisoners of war, and slaves.

But gladiators could gain wealth, power, and powerful friends if they survived the ring. In some cases the thumbs could not go down on them if they were popular with the masses. By the end of the Republic, about half of the gladiators were free men who chose it as an occupation—the same as a young MBA would choose investment banking.

They did it for money, “honor,” and fame. They were like the Roger Clemens, Brett Favres, Koby Bryants, Tiger Woods, and the Kazakhstani Krushers (WWE Wrestling) of today.

Gladiators were owned by “corporations” and “lanistas” who often traded them back and forth, sold them to other owners, and often kept them in line by “adoring females” hired by the owners.

Gladiators are often portrayed in movies as living in harsh conditions, shackled and behind bars when not fighting in the ring. Owners often treated their investments well. They were schooled in the martial arts in four major Empire schools.

Eventually all gladiators were owned and schooled by Roman emperors because they were afraid that private owners would train gladiators to start private armies.

Three Up—Three Down May Cost The Yankees $106,000

Some of our gladiators of the day are still in the ring, but most swing a bat, throw a ball, wear a helmet, or shoot a ball through a hoop.

The most successful are paid well by their corporations and lanistas. Many of them are followed by adoring females, clutching open purses and super biographical orgasms.

The Yankees pay Alex Rodriguez $42,000 a plate appearance for hitting a baseball and hitting on Madonna. Derek Jeter is paid $29,000 per plate appearance. They have recently signed Mark Teixeira for $181 million for six seasons, resulting in a $35,000 plate appearance for the new guy.

A team can’t go without competent pitchers so they signed C.C. Sabbathia, late of the Milwaukee Brewers and Cleveland Indians, for $23 million per season. That comes out to an average of $34,000 per out.

So when the Yankees go to bat with the three and go hitless it costs them $106,000. If C.C. strkes out three men in his half of the inning it costs the Yankees $102,000. So just these four gladiators have cost $208,000 for one inning and we haven’t even counted the five little gladiators who make up the rest of the team.

So these four make more in a two-minute at-bat or pitching an out than real workers who make the median wage for the whole year.

If these economic facts don’t make any sense to you in this age of bailouts and billion-dollar salaries for hedge managers, just think of the General Motors Board of Directors paying their CEO $18 million in salary while the company was losing $181,000 a minute. Does that make any sense?

I suppose the Yankee fan will continue to pay $2,500 for his seat to watch his gladiators for one game. Major League baseball, going way beyond Nero fiddling while Rome burned and listening to Caligula’s horse for state decisions, is now offering pinstriped funeral caskets in Yankee colors for fans who want to go to the Yankee executive suite in the sky.

The team logo is also embossed on the open lid lining and on the special pillow. Actually I was surprised at the price. It’s only $5,000 or two days’ worth of tickets. And when it comes time, why not have an umpire throw some infield dirt on it to bless it?