Makers need a market for their products. Bookmakers don't.
One of the reasons both parties supported a thriving middle class is because that created a lot more people who could buy cars and televisions -- and, later, computers and cell phones. But bookmakers don't need a market for their products, because they don't make anything.
Wall Street speculation and the job losses that can result doesn't faze them. Neither do declining wages, growing wealth inequality or lost social mobility. Those things may deprive the Makers of paying customers. But the Bookies can bet against the Makers as easily as they can bet in favor of them.
Makers need a planet which is hospitable to human life. Bookmakers don't.
Ever wonder how people can care so little for the future of the planet? That's easy: Climate change's greatest devastation won't begin for decades. Bookmakers only worry about the next quarterly report.
And as the air and water quality decline, they know they'll be able to move to other, more hospitable climes.
Hedging Tomorrow
The novel Interface was co-authored by renowned sci-fi author Neal Stephenson. Unlike Cory Doctorow, I'm not sure it's one of his best works. Literary questions aside, its premise is flawed: Today's ultra-rich don't want to get your opinions so they can tell politicians what to think. They intend to tell you what to think, and they may have the resources to do it.
But then, Neal Stephenson couldn't have known that back in the pre-Citizens United days of 1994.
The Bookies have a message for the future -- for the millions who will become refugees because of coastal flooding, for the growing ranks of the impoverished at home and abroad, for those who would have no hope of a better life if their agenda is enacted. The message is this:
"We'll never convince you to take personal responsibility for your lives ..."
That kind of talk may be illogical and cruel, but it lets them anesthetize their own consciences so they can close the next deal. It even lets them shut out any thought of the world their own descendants will inherit.
Our children's children's children: What a bunch of takers.
Who are the powerful people Mitt Romney represents? They're the Bookies. They build nothing, create nothing, contribute nothing. They gamble on the futures of others and don't care who wins or loses. They're radical, and they're angry (See "The Radical Rich"). And, increasingly, they're in control.
Grim forecasts don't necessarily disturb them. They can hedge anything, even the future. And they'll be dead and gone before the coming generations pay the greatest price of their success. In the meantime there's good money to be made. You can even make a profit by betting against tomorrow.
It's like they say: There's a market for everything.
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