As IF Times

link Davos elites to seek reforms of outdated capitalism.

An interesting postulate, if only there were some evidence of it.  While it’s popular for the socialist crowd to bemoan the structural inequities of the capitalist system, in fact, there hasn’t truly been a capitalist system in place in any nation for many generations.  Certainly not in Europe, where in most countries, the predominant train of governing regimes moved from historically entrenched monarchies,  directly to socialism with only the  briefest whistle-stop at the capitalist station.  What they consider capitalism in Europe is akin to equating Dominos to Italian food.

It was historically natural for people to whine and complain that the King or the Queen (as the case may have been), weren’t treating the peasants well.  Under monarchies, upward social mobility was pretty limited.  You were either born royal, or married into it.  Even having money wasn’t a guarantee of social mobility.  Therefore, the majority of the population lived at the favour of the ruling class, receiving whatever crumbs the rulers deigned to confer.  This same mentality carries over to present day wherein people whine and complain about those in charge, demanding more of this or less of that.

The model for America was rather different, at least in the beginning.  People who were tired of others telling them what they could or couldn’t do decided to start their own country, a meritocracy based nation free of the constraints of entrenched and corrupt governance.  The problems arose many many years later when, along with great wealth creation, came the disease of entitlement.  Instead of a healthy focus on creating wealth and prosperity, the malaise of an entitlement to wealth and prosperity mentality began to spread.

Which brings us to today.  According to reports, fully 40% of Americans pay no federal income tax.  According to http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html , over 70% of federal income taxes are paid by only the top 10 percentile of taxpayers.  Even worse, apparently there are 70 federal welfare programs in place now to address “poverty” in the U.S., according to The Heritage Foundation.  Hardly a true capitalist system.

Meanwhile in Europe, the ability to fund months of holidays for workers, retirement benefits starting at 50, social welfare to accommodate everyone who asks, is coming up against the harsh wall of reality.  States such as Greece, Portugal, Italy and on and on are unable to fund these entitlements.  Somehow, the blame is laid at the doorstep of capitalism, when in fact socialism is the disease that afflicts all nations.  It’s brilliant sleight of hand that those who benefited the most from crony capitalism, which is in fact socialism, are crying crocodile tears about the failure of capitalism.  This is the same logic as decrying the existence of laws since the jails are so full of people.  It is the same as refuting the idea of universal education because some people are still illiterate.

We don’t  know who these so called ‘elites’ in the Cristal and caviar crowd are and how they came to be spokesmen for anyone, but it’s a good idea to be skeptical when the ones trying to sell you on the evils of wealth are the ones that have the most of it.  Next, Hugh Hefner complaining about promiscuity.

link AOL and Huffington Post sued by unpaid bloggers | Reuters.

You knew this was coming, it was just a matter of time.  A few months back, America Online decided that the best way to spend their cash horde was to buy the far left wing graffiti, er I mean blog site, The Huffington Post for $315 million dollars.

Kudos to Arianna Huffington for being shrewd enough to create and promote her website as the repository for deranged ideologues.  The Post became the place to be seen for written opinions of the lefty persuasion and included scribblings from noted entertainment personalities which served to even more embellish the Post’s reputation.   For many bloggers who contributed to the opinions, having Huffington Post credentials conferred, to them at least, legitimacy, as if it were some kind of literary achievement.   In reality, most of the content could be found spray painted on the side of buildings as nonsensical diatribe.  The Post however gave voice and a stage to the raving ideologues.

Now that Arianna has gone mainstream, those same bloggers are clamoring for their share of the loot from AOL.  Good luck.  If their logic held any water, Hugh Hefner would have to share his profits with all the girls who had ever graced the pages of Playboy, since it can be argued it was their contributions that really drove the magazine.  These prototypical geeks writing pieces in their mother’s basement in their underwear may feel betrayed by Arianna, since they were supposed to be united against ‘the man’, ie the ‘establishment’.  Now it turns out, she is one of them.  So much for ideology and comrades in arms.

Bloggers write and pontificate on all sorts of things.  In general, nobody really cares unless you happen to have some previous notoriety from real life.  Then, you can spit out all kinds of flotsam and people will drink in your every word.  Think Charlie Sheen.  In America, it’s what sells, not what’s neccessarily good.  So the bottom line is, these shut out bloggers had better start writing something legitimate because their graffiti wall is gone.  Maybe it’s back to the spray can for most of them.

link The Caligulan court of Silvio Berlusconi laid bare – Telegraph.

On the other hand, you don’t have to worry about this guy being influenced by graft.  Regarded as one of the richest men in Italy, Berlusconi is presumably paying for all of this ‘amusement’ from his own pockets.  Usually, the politician is caught diverting the public’s  funds for personal gain.  Dictators like Yasser Arafat, Ferdinand Marcos and the recently deposed Zine Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia come to mind.   All of these statesmen made off with billions of dollars of their citizen’s money and lived in relative dignity, right until the jig was up.

Of course, I risk falling into the trap of moral relativism, the typical liberal technique, but with all of the incompetent and corrupt personalities running nations today, Berlusconi is comparatively saint like.  He is not starving his people and lobbing missiles into South Korea like Kim Jong Il.   He is not robbing the nation, confiscating key industries and placing his family and cronies in their place like Ben Ali.  He is not hoarding the nation’s resource wealth and spreading it only to the extended “royal family’ while leaving the nation impoverished, like Saudi Arabia and most arab nations.  He is not financing antagonists who would bomb and harass the Western world who happen to disagree with his religion, again like some Arab rulers.  He is not allowing his sadistic sons to run around terrorizing the population as did Saddam Hussein during his happier days.   He is not ruling by decree and nationalizing state assets like Hugo Chavez.   He is not trying to transform the most successful nation state in the history of man to become a flaccid socialist one,  apparently the goal of the current U.S. president.

Compared to some of the illustrious statesmen running other countries today, Silvio’s peccadilloes are rather pedestrian.  No one can deny he is narcissistic like many men of wealth. He lives like Hugh Hefner without the campy trappings and oily personna. At least Silvio has the decency to put on a suit.   How quaint that running after girls is viewed with such distaste when the world is full of other self important egomaniacs with much more vile and sinister intents.  The Italians don’t know how good they have it.  His detractors look to hang him, but the people of Italy still appear to embrace him.  And he embraces them right back….well at least the women.