(Editorial note... This commentary was found while searching for completely unrelated documents. The operating system shows it was written on Febrary 23, 2019. It isn't clear what events at that time triggered this thought but the thoughts are even more apropos now than in 2019.)
Virtually everyone has seen the movie It's a Wonderful Life. For most, it's a quaint, now somewhat schmaltzy Christmas movie illustrating how the power of friendship can overcome nearly any difficulty in life.
For me, the scene that resonates with me -- and with events in America over the last two decades -- is the "what would have been" scene when George Bailey and Clarence the Angel stop by Martini's bar, the town's friendly watering hole in real-world Bedford Falls, which has now become something else entirely in alt-world. You recognize it immediately when Nick brushes off the first question about Martini's whereabouts and replies to George, "Look, I'm the boss, you wanna drink or doncha?" George and Clarence sit at the bar for a few more awkward moments, having awkward conversation about ancient wussy drinks which spawns another retort from Nick... "Hey look, mister. We serve hard drinks in here for men who wanna get drunk fast and we don't need any characters around to give the joint atmosphere. Is that clear or do I have to slip you my lip for a convincer?" A few seconds later, Mr. Gower, a man whose livelihood George saved in real-world, staggers into the bar in alt-world out of the snowy night, disheveled and incoherent and is instantly set upon by Nick who then throws out George and Clarence after realizing they know Gower.
At that point, it HAS become clear. The sleepy town of Bedford Falls -- the epitome of a Normal Rockwell-like small town America -- has truly been transformed into Potterville, a crass, cold, uncaring, mean-cuz-it's-fun hellhole that perfectly matches the morals and personality of Henry Potter, the warped, frustrated old man bent on dominating everything in the town.
The essence of this scene -- an entire town filled with miserable, mean people who just want to sit in a bar and drink hard liquor and get drunk fast to avoid the reality of their lives controlled by a man doing everything in his power to rig the town's entire economy to force that dependency -- has many parallels to current America.
- tremendous income and wealth inequality
- large numbers strung out on illicit drugs
- even larger numbers strung out on drugs first obtained by prescription
- millions who would be bankrupt in 6 months if they lost a paycheck but still insist on owning the latest $699 smartphone
As a thought exercise in pop/national psychology, one can probably make a defensible case for tracing much of the above back to one decade -- the 1980s -- and two figures -- Jack Welch and Robin Leach.
How so?
In the 1980s, Jack Welch became a household name in the business community and the larger American psyche as the CEO of General Electric, which began posting an amazing series of quarterly financial reports. Those reports not only reflected success in a complicated conglomerate operating businesses in everything from appliances to television to nuclear reactors but they did so with AMAZING precision. From 1981 to 2000, the firm hit earnings forecasts TO THE PENNY for nearly every quarter. Of course, that's virtually impossible to do for a small company in a single industry. That is absolutely impossible to do for a conglomerate operating in DOZENS of industries across the entire economy whose growth cannot be predicted within 2% for any given YEAR much less individual QUARTERS. Welch did it by manipulating earnings and hundreds of auditors paid handsomely to catch this type of trickery looked away. Welch became a celebrity CEO guru, touting his Six Sigma quality BS and "cull the bottom 10% of losers every year" Human Resources philosophy and polluting much of Corporate America with the same dodgy / criminal practices. Well after Welch retired with an obscene congratulatory golden parachute, GE wound up paying $50 million in fines for decades of financial rigging, a mere pittance compared to the hundreds of billions of fraudulent shareholder value built up then lost when the reality became apparent.
In the 1980s, Robin Leach became a household name hosting a tacky TV show featuring "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," filling 30 minutes of airtime reminding the little people in America how the rich rolled and, week after week, subliminally conveying the non-rich watching the show were suckers for holding real jobs and having realistic goals for their families. The show also put what had been a relatively harmless degree of celebrity worship (excepting Elvis and a few other early canaries in the celebrity coalmine) into hyperdrive, pitching anyone obscenely rich as worthy of respect, regardless of how that wealth was earned -- the ultimate perversion of a uniquely American "Prosperity Gospel." If you're successful, God wants you to be successful. If you're not, well, look in the mirror.
By the mid-1990s, those two social phenomena had reinforced each other to the point that the Internet boom created a period of 4-5 years where a much larger pool of people thought they were this --->||<--- close to scoring a jackpot with options at an Internet startup or IPO investments of firms with stock prices growing 10-20 percent every year. Wow, with 20 percent yearly growth, ANYONE can invest in their 401k, never lose money and retire in 10-15 years rather than working 40 years. For a while, no one begrudged Bill Gates or Marc Andreeson or John Chambers... Or Jack Welch or Bernie Ebbers or Ken Lay... as they made billions of dollars cuz many thought they were right behind them on the gravy train, only with $M figures instead of $B figures. Hey, when you're destined for millionaire status, who cares what the billionaires are doing?
In essence, these forces combined to create a rock hard faith in a meritocracy of both corporations and those that run them. Corporations growing by leaps and bounds in market share and revenue are a reflection upon America as a whole and if they succeed, America succeeds. If giant corporations need to pay zero taxes to foster "investment" and pay executives tens of millions for their brilliance at managing such large operations, it must be allowed. The alternative would cripple their success and weaken America.
These tropes fit the goals of those in control of those large corporations but they don't fit reality.
At any point in the history of the industrialized world, there have probably been 8-10 core areas of business that are virtually ASSURED of enormous growth and success based on the science and technology of the day. Human knowledge and creativity only grows so much per year to widen the pool much beyond that. At any given point in time, the people RUNNING and OWNING those businesses are virtually GUARANTEED to make -- well... -- robber baron money. Eventually, the nature of their business becomes more commonplace and "table stakes" in the economy and growth flattens out. At that point, someone else comes up with a bright idea based on advancements in science and a new growth area attracts attention and investors looking for the next three bagger.
The American public doesn't understand these dynamics. America's leaders are controlled lock, stock and barrel by the 0.1 percenters who are intent on insuring public policy continues to go their way. Those factors explain some of the modern day similarities of America to Potterville and why breaking the cycle will be difficult.
But we have problems that go way beyond Potterville. Way beyond tendencies to drug addictions and oblivious attitudes about economics and basic decency.
What about:
- a team doctor sexually abusing HUNDREDS of female gymnasts under his care?
- musicians with decades long histories of sexual abuse of minors?
- producers with decades long histories of sexual assault of DOZENS of women?
- actors with decades long histories of sexual assault of DOZENS of women?
- multiple religions with hundreds of priests with thousands of cases of sexual assault of minors?
- a sports executive worth billions patronizing prostitutes at seedy massage parlors who couldn't speak English and were trafficked from China?
- a business executive who attempted to extort cities for tax breaks for his firm that makes billions and pays little state/federal taxes winding up getting extorted with lewd photos involving him and his mistress?
What lessons have we absorbed about the relationships between money, power, fairness and justice that enables these events to become commonplace? Those lessons need to be examined and deconstructed very quickly. The rich aren't orders of magnitude smarter or harder working than the rest of the population. Fame through sports or entertainment isn't so worthwhile to merit silence after being abused by insiders while pursuing it. Giant corporations don't have to control 40+ percent of a market to succeed at delivering goods and services needed by the public. And the public shouldn't feel obligated to give away billions in tax revenue needed for schools, roads, safety and infrastructure in order to attract jobs.
Unless Americans re-think their assumptions about money, power, fairness and justice, we're headed for a future in America that will make us yearn for mere Potterville levels of dysfunction.
WTH
