Why the Billionaires Chose Paul Ryan To Be Speaker

Because of all the prosperity and stuff,
 the little people are loving the austerity and stuff.
Plus, NOW you can't get rid of me. Ever. [cartoon source]

The GOP's Latest "Monument to Hypocrisy"

Not to mention, of course, out right lying to an information starved

 Republican base which has finally been abused enough to no longer care.

Although the cartoon [above] speaks clearly to Ryan's record of absolutely detesting any kind of social safety net, there are plenty of other pretty good reasons to avoid him like the plague. The "safety net hatred" is straight, unadulterated Ayn Rand style "Objectivism." Rand's dystopian wet dream amounted to a screw ball, Libertarian orgasm in which the US government would strictly limit tax expenditures to national military defense, policing and a domestic judiciary which would be limited to resolving looting issues between billionaires.

Paul becomes conveniently Catholic when he extends this free fall Libertarianism into his vision of domestic law to not only rape prosecutions, but also most forms of contraception. [Remember - he intends to be the Speaker of the House of Representatives where laws like this one traditionally originate.] He sponsored the "Sanctity of Life" Act which proposed issuing "full citizenship" to fertilized eggs. Still, slashing food stamps and winter heating subsidies while funneling "the savings" into tax cuts for his millionaire bosses didn't sit that well with either the Catholic Bishops or the Nuns on the Bus who took to the road to campaign against him.

Economically, Ryan is a "debt vulture" -- in fact, perhaps even the "head debt vulture," a real challenge among the retrograde GOP crowd in the House. He individually served as one of the main "cheer leaders" for the calamitous high end tax cuts during the Bush autocracy which are still in place, and which are still serving as "perpetual wrecking balls" to efforts to mitigate the national budget deficit. [Theoretically, this isn't entirely "hypocrisy." Those tax cuts are squeezing everything from the social safety net to highway maintenance by denying revenue to the government.]

Representative Ryan has still found the time to promote more than a little of his "inspired, Ayn Randian social engineering" work -- especially with his penchant for demonizing the poor. “We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, and so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with,” Ryan said on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America. Paul Ryan has never worked anywhere but in politics and the government.

Paul has met every loyalty test that big oil could pose for a "well lubricated" Congressman. Aside from his own family's extensive oil holdings, the big whigs in the "lubricating business" have made sure that Ryan's campaign war chests are "full to the gunwales" with oily, Federally subsidized, practically tax free, gold Ducats. Naturally, Paul doesn't lose much sleep worrying about imaginary, liberal follies such as climate change, either. [Read more  here Paul Ryan ADDICTING INFO]

The New Speaker's "Moments of Good Fortune" Strategy

Hmmm. Things seem to be rolling along suspiciously smoothly.

It's worth the effort to point out some of the peculiar features of the "completely coincidental, meteoric ascension" the Representative is enjoying at the time of this posting. MeanMesa has spotted three of these very curiously advantageous "coincidences."

Speaker Ryan's 

Series of "Coincidental Embraces of Happy Destiny"

Golly. The man's good luck is astonishing...

1. Everyone was watching Hillary and the Benghazi hearings.

Actually, Hillary's masterful domination of the Benghazi "special committee" surprised absolutely no one. In fact MeanMesa suspects that the entire fiasco amounted to a premeditated tactic for Special Committee Chairman, Trey Gowdy, to officially "fall on his sword" while all the network news cameras filmed it. 

In the beginning "Rowdy" Gowdy promised to be "great fun" while the Republican leadership was still lost in a premature ejaculation festival, fantasizing about the great political victory the hearings would bring a few weeks ahead of the 2016 election. But then...Gowdy, although the most credentialed "hatchet man" available in the admittedly rustic GOP House Conference, became more and more embarrassing. 

With the inevitable "licking" that Gowdy's committee was facing, the decision was made to use the "voluntary self immolation" of the committee to run media cover for the politically perilous Ryan Ascension to Speakership. Ryan had a well known image problem with most everyone who wasn't hypnotized by the FOX bubble -- including more than a few otherwise "fire breathing" tea baggers who happened to be living on their Social Security checks.

2. While the humble, reluctant hero, "suddenly" being groomed  to "save the day," was still in make up preparing for his scene, political daylight began illuminating his not so humble, premeditated, Machiavellian power grabbing scheme.

The "near Saintly" image scripted by Representative Ryan as he fumbled and bumbled, back and forth, torn between the love and devotion to his family and the call of his duty for "patriotic self-sacrifice," was so cheaply shabby as to be laughable. It wasn't even good propaganda, and that criticism, when extended to Republican FOXites, cuts to the bone. The billionaires who own the Party had always insisted on "good propaganda" to keep the hill billies outraged -- and in line.

The well managed crisis of utter unmanageability had descended on the chaotic GOP House Caucus like a 21st Century epidemic of the Black Plague. All the "candidates to be the next Caesar" had either committed political suicide, been assassinated already or were in hiding. While this might have appeared to be an "unfortunate coincidence," the whole affair had that "suspicious odor" of being a rather meat handed conspiracy to ordain Ryan as "heir apparent" and as a "solution to the emergency," This conspiracy had been birthed so long ago as to already be somewhat "long in the tooth."

McCarthy's loud mouthed "misstep" was probably part of the plan.

3. Meeting Ryan's demand for a few "minor rule changes" bodes dark weather ahead for ALL the House Republicans.

With the quivering corpse of the previous Caesar [Boehner] still "hot on the floor" the pitch that Ryan was simply maneuvering to avoid the same fate seemed understandable enough, but closer examination of the political realities at play suggests a very different scenario.

We must begin by speculating about precisely why Ryan has turned out to the the billionaires' "chosen one." Happily, the mystery is not particularly difficult to resolve.

We can begin by asking ourselves: "What has been Ryan's embarrassingly obvious obsession every time he's appeared before a microphone during the last decade?"

The answer isn't too tough. More than anything else in the entire world, Ryan's dreams are fixated on handing the $2.7 Tn Social Security Trust Fund -- or even a substantial part of it -- over to the Owners of the Republican Party. The "standard script" for accomplishing this is to convert the Trust into an "investment account" and pumping the entire thing into the Wall Street casinos.

When he speaks as a Representative [and Chairman of the GOP's House Ways and Means Committee] or when he was speaking as a Vice Presidential Candidate, nary five minutes can pass without another reference to "the absolute necessity of cutting entitlements." Ryan is always careful to add other "entitlements" as additional targets in his plan, but his scheme always returns to the $2.7 Tn in the Social Security Trust -- the source of funds for all the rest.

Ryan has wet dreams in the dark of night but not about what one might consider more or less "normal" things. He dreams about how "grateful" the billionaires would be if he were to be the one who finally managed to "deliver the goods" on the oligarchs' Social Security Trust scam.

And, although even this is horrible, there's more.

While autocrat, George W. Bush, was spending money like a drunken sailor, a good part of that money came from the Trust -- at least a trillion dollars. So, when we say that the Trust holds $2.7 Tn, we are including the "paper Treasury notes" from the Bush regime for around $1 trillion of that. [Remember Al Gore talking about the Social Security "lock box?"] The problem with all of this is that the Republicans have no idea how they might ever possibly pay this debt. Every time they get close to "running things," their avarice immediately clouds what little mental capacity they have, and they wreck the economy again...and again...and again.

If Ryan were ever able to cut "entitlements" the way he describes, it would represent a "way out" of this briar patch -- at least, a "way out" in Ryan's mind.

Now, on to the "dark horizons" part.

Ryan is nuts. If, as Speaker, he begins a slow, steady pressure to destroy Social Security [and, he could do this if he had the power of being Speaker], the move would be political suicide for the GOP. However, none of the sold out GOP Congressmen have any appetite whatsoever for being "connected" in any way with the political meat grinder of destroying Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the rest.

Previously, such "crazy talk" was never too much of a problem for the Republicans. Sure, there were always "voices" proposing something like this, but those "voices" were always ignored. But with Ryan as Speaker, there will no longer be any possibility of "ignoring" such proposals.

Whether individual Congressmen were "on board" with the scheme or not, they would be swept up in the mayhem.

The "rules change" that Ryan is insisting upon as one his "demands" calls for abolishing of the House rule that empowers members to oust the Speaker.

This means that otherwise non-suicidal House members would be stuck with Ryan at the helm, and anti-Social Security legislation moving through under the protection of the Speaker and with the votes of the mentally unstable tea bag caucuses.

As far as MeanMesa is concerned, it couldn't happen to a more deserving Party.

Additional Reading

Remembering Exactly What Paul Ryan Is.
The Billionaire "Do-Over" may have "Done Wonders," 
but this deceptively human manikin
 still requires plenty of pan cake for public appearances.

Paul Ryan has invested a great deal of effort to image himself as several "important" things throughout his lack luster career as a politician. Most American voters probably recall Ryan as the "somewhat animated" little henchman with the "salivating problem" while he followed bone dry Mitt Romney around in the last Presidential election. 

The "salivating problem" has always been evidence of a particularly nasty kind of wild ambition which was never successfully reconciled with the little guy's actual place in the scheme of his standing in the atmospherics of the right wing oligarchy crowd. We can all pretty much understand why actual oligarchs and billionaires begin their own, unique episodes of uncontrollable salivating when they find themselves within grabbing range of their latest "bright, shiny object," but Ryan remains a mascot, not a "player."

Come on. After being an overly eager, relentless "House hatchet man" for the Owners of the Republican Party for years, the perpetually "up and coming Young Gun" has barely amassed his first few millions for his dutiful service.

As a politician, a plausibly bonafide claim to "humble roots" was as important as clean underwear to the youngster as he scratched and clawed his way ahead to his place in the "big money realm" of the GOP. For a little background we can look at some LA Times reporting from the days of his Vice Presidential campaign days. [Excerpted. Visit the original article  here - LATIMES Aug 2012]

A closer look at Ryan's "asset record" helps explain the history of his utterly fraudulent, creepy eagerness to "liquify" vital social "safety nets" relied upon by "lesser Americans." His career has lent new substance and meaning to a famous sign on an Anchorage bar from MeanMesa's youth in Alaska: "We cheat the other guy and pass the savings on to you."

LATimes

Despite working-class image,

Ryan comes from family of wealth

Paul Ryan was born into one of the most prominent families in Janesville, Wis., and his rise to political power and financial stability was boosted by family money and connections.

By Ralph Vartabedian, Richard A. Serrano and Ken Bensinger

 Los Angeles Times August 25, 2012|

***

And yet Ryan, 42, was born into one of the most prominent families in Janesville, Wis., the son of a successful attorney and the grandson of the top federal prosecutor for the western region of the state.Ryan grew up in a big Colonial house on a wooded lot, and his extended clan includes investment managers, corporate executives and owners of major construction companies.

The seeming contradiction appears to have its roots in a family crisis in 1986, when at the age of 16, Ryan discovered his father dead of a heart attack.

The death of Paul Murray Ryan forced the family to make adjustments. Ryan's mother went back to work. And Ryan took up jobs, as well.

After graduating in 1992 from Miami University, a public college in Ohio, he went to work as an intern and then as a committee professional staffer on Capitol Hill for Sen. Bob Kasten, a Wisconsin Republican, who was defeated that same year by Feingold. When Kasten was voted out, Ryan lost his job. He went to work at the Tortilla Coast restaurant on Capitol Hill, where he ran into Feingold. In 1993, he left behind his hourly job and began as a speechwriter at Empower America, the think tank formed by former congressman and George H.W. Bush Cabinet secretary Jack Kemp and other conservatives, according to a Ryan campaign spokesman.

***

But there was also more to it than work. Ryan's rise to political power and financial stability was boosted by family connections and wealth. The larger Ryan family has repeatedly helped the candidate along in his career, giving him a job when he needed one and piling up tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions.

In the year after his father's death, Ryan's maternal grandmother set up the Ryan-Hutter Investment Partnership, which remains an important part of Ryan's finances with assets of up to half a million dollars, according to the congressman's 2011 financial disclosure statement. Ryan continues as the general partner running the entity for the family.

Court records indicate Ryan's father left a probate estate of $428,000, though the number of assets existing outside the will or the probate remains unknown. Ryan was to receive $50,000 when he turned 30. The will leaves the bulk of the estate to Ryan's mother, who now lives in an oceanfront condo in Florida.

In addition to the Ryan-Hutter Investment Partnership, Ryan also benefits from another family entity, Ryan Limited Partnership, which was established in March 1995 by an aunt. Ryan's share of that is worth up to $500,000. Ryan makes no investment decisions in either partnership, the campaign spokesman said.

By the time Ryan had entered Congress in 1999 at the age of 28 and filed his first disclosure statement, he reported assets between $167,000 and $1.3 million, owned a home and had three rental units.

The next year, Ryan married Janna Little, a tax attorney, and his income skyrocketed. (Ryan reported gross income of $323,416 in 2011.)

Of the Ryans' maximum estimated assets of $7.6 million, Janna's holdings account for about $6.5 million. She is the daughter of Dan and Prudence Little, two lawyers in Madill, Okla., who over the years have overseen a vast network of land and oil and gas mineral rights in the Red River area straddling southern Oklahoma and northern Texas.

The wealth derived from Janna's grandfather, Reuel Winfred Little, a self-made millionaire several times over in oil and gas interests and other ventures. He arrived in Madill in 1927 after graduating from the University of Oklahoma law school, with just $25 and a second-hand typewriter. He invented and patented a type of injector used to poison trees, the Little Tree Injector. He made separate fortunes in legal work and redeveloping former military housing.

Meanwhile, the Ryan extended family was building up its own empire in construction, starting with Patrick Ryan, the congressman's great-grandfather. Ryan's branch of the family did not stay in the construction business, and Ryan has no financial interest in it today, the campaign spokesman said. But in 1998, when Ryan returned to Janesville to begin his first run for Congress, he briefly took a job with Ryan Inc. Central, a Wisconsin-based road grading company.

The Ryan roots run deep in Janesville.

Patriarch Patrick Ryan sent Ryan's grandfather, Stanley M. Ryan, to the University of Wisconsin law school, and he was named U.S. attorney for the western district of Wisconsin when he was 24 by President Harding. He rose to prominence in Janesville as a private attorney, serving on a bank board and as chairman of the fire and police commission. When he died, judges from all over the state came to his funeral. Ryan's father was also a prominent attorney, practicing in Janesville until his death.

Ryan and his family now live in a Georgian Revival home in Janesville that was once owned by the president of the Parker Pen Co. and former chairman of the state Republican Party. The congressman's aunt, uncle, cousin and brother all live within blocks of his home in the historic Courthouse Hill district.

***

And previous posts on this subject from MeanMesa:

MeanMesa Social Security: A GOP Dirty Tricks Primer

MeanMesa GOP: When the Billionaires Get Edgdy

GOPCons - Only Oligarchs are "Entitled" to "Entitlements"

Why Do We Have To Call Them "Entitlements?"

We don't, of course.  In fact, in most cases the term's usage in this meaning will not bear the "dictionary test."

The "dictionary test"
 

Definition of ENTITLEMENT

1 a: the state or condition of being entitled : right b: a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract

2 : a government program providing benefits to members of a specified group; also : funds supporting or distributed by such a program

3 : belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges

The term has been adopted into the relentless GOPCon "talking points" menu in hopes of exploiting the rather bad taste left in the mouths -- at least in the collective social memory -- of modern American "colonials" sufficiently educated to find themselves actually able to reminisce about the "bad old days."

Those would be the "bad old days" prior to the American Revolution. In our American case, "entitlements" meant way too many highly aggressive, economic and societal "traditions" imposed by our colonial master, England.

The pre-revolutionary colonies found themselves not only bowing and genuflecting to these "entitled" Brits on the streets of American cities, but they also suffered under the suffocating corporate advantages bestowed in the same manner on British "enterprises." Hopefully, we have all heard the tale of the Boston Tea Party, even though the story has been conveniently "missed" by its latest usurpers.

However, this recent history must step aside for even more medieval events which have to do with this posting. How, exactly, did all those noble British Lords, Dukes, Earls and Barons become Lords, Dukes, Earls and Barons in the first place?

Here, we have to move directly to the "fun realm" of definitions, conveniently nuanced re-definitions and complete, "up is down" style re-definitions. The sheer frequency of the term's use on the commentaries of the "media fraud" would suggest that it held some sort of substantial importance. It, of course, doesn't. 

Even the NewsHour's Senior Correspondent, Gwen Ifill, now has no difficulty whatsoever in referring to Social Security as an "entitlement."

Once we consider this specific question we are ready to investigate the radically altered view of the heavily exploited term, "entitlements," in our modern context, that is, the complete "up is down" re-definition which the otherwise, nicely legitimate word has suffered at the hands of FOX and the remainder of the slobbering media who has yet to so much as even "grace the door" of an on line dictionary.

That is, "even graced the door of an on line dictionary" before blindly assigning the word, "entitlement," to every little thing that the wing nut press, "psyche" managers have decided must be an "entitlement."

The Medieval Origin of the Idea of "Entitlement"

Just before the consolidating monarchy established the noble order, England was dominated by war lords.  With the ascension of the kings, these local "bosses" settled for titles, that is, they settled for royal "entitlements."  Of course, there was more than an interesting addition to a name involved.  Provinces, farms, land, towns -- all were ceded as assets necessary to sustain the "entitled" in a manner of life considered comfortable and appropriate, or even, "ordained by God, Himself" in addition to the King.

Whatever other details are absent from this quick explanation, it was later on when the hard feelings in the colonies came into play.  After generations of  these noble "entitlements," the thing had become cast in concrete.  Although there were no particularly convincing reasons for this two class system to be the "law of the land," it was.

"When the 'un-entitled' get uppity." (image source)

Over time the generational nobility became a little more gentrified, but there continued to be cases where raw power still had its day.   In France, the names were different, but the system was far too similar.  Even the religionists got into the fray with abbots and abbeys, Bishoprics and, of course, the Holy See.

After a few centuries had passed, the revolutions began.  The new idea was that wealth was okay, but only when there was some semblance of having earned it.  Naturally, the same crew, wishing for a return of the "good old days," pressed the "pedal to the metal" to reset the calendar.  One idea was to simply call anything the oligarchs wished to denigrate an "entitlement," regardless of whether or not such a declaration actually made any sense, that is, any sense at all.

The education challenged hill billies loved it.  Discovering this "love," the right wing "talking points" factories could also "not get enough of it."  This is why those of us still brave enough to sample the corporate "media fraud" now and then hear the term effortlessly used to describe Social Security 6 times each hour.

What We're Being Told To Think

This re-imaging process is marked by the presence of a detectable goal.  The Social Security system, under this onslaught, is to be re-framed into nothing more than a willy nilly, "hare brained," liberal scheme for wealth extraction from the General Fund.  Under the "FDR liberals," this out-of-control policy "steals" from the rich and "gives" to the poor.

That is, the policy "steals" from the rich who have actually deserved to have this money all along and "gives" to the poor who have no right to it, at all, whatsoever, and so on.  Worse, the greedy poor have become quite demanding that the policy continue to be followed, even after the hard working, long suffering rich have, so to speak, emptied the cash box.

Now, because the greedy poor have become so rapacious in their demands for Social Security funds -- and not because the rich have emptied the cash box -- the system is bankrupting the country.  Even better, a nice block of very, very, serious, GOPCon "calculations" -- made with extra special, ultra modern "Ryan Mathematics" -- absolutely and inescapably "proves" this terrifying prediction to be absolutely and inescapably true.

At least to the illiterates in the GOPCon "political base."

Hence, just as the lands and privileges of a medieval noble family were an "entitlement," Social Security benefits being purloined from the pockets of the rich amount to exactly the same thing.  The King may have flexed his muscle to establish the original system, but liberals, after no doubt "stealing" an election at some time in the past, flexed their muscles to begin this horrible things which, it turns out, also, somehow,  goes against the Bible.

The rich, once again -- just as in the time before the revolution -- find themselves  hamstrung by the outrageous fate of being crushed under the "jack boot" of a new, illegitimate nobility -- the old and the poor.

What We Need To Remember

First, MeanMesa cannot resist "throwing in" a clever analogy.  Here, we can replace the Social Security system with a common auto insurance company.

All the customers of this insurance company purchase policies which will assist them if they have a wreck.  Premiums are dutifully paid, month after month, and the insurance company's revenue flows into a fund which will be large enough to answer such responsibilities when there is a loss.

Then, one of these customers has a wreck.  Pursuant to the contract governing the relationship between the premium paying customer and the loss compensating insurance company, he receives a nice check and gets his car fixed.

The GOPCon idea is somewhat different, however.  In it, the insurance company executives spend all the premium money on important, "trickle down," tax breaks for their friends.  When they are notified about their customer's car wreck, their answer is simple.

"It turns out that the claim for money you are expecting to receive from us isn't actually legitimate, after all.  In fact, it is manifest of one of those very reasonably hated, medieval 'entitlements' we fought the Revolutionary War to eliminate. How dare you try to impose such an unfairness on us hard working insurance company executives?"


"Now, get out of our office.  You're 'wealth extraction' scheme is a thing of the past.  Oh, and by the way, keep paying your premiums.  We know where you live."

This charade has, now, progressed to the point where the "talking points peddlers" are actually "reporting" what the Republicans "got" in terms of spending cuts as if it were some nightmarish, trailer park pick up game.

GOPCons such as "angry young lion," Ryan, believe, if they can scare the electorate enough with a phony mish mash of lies and "statistics," that we will sign off on another gigantic breach of contract almost the same size as the last one, that is, almost the same size as the autocrat's TARP snatch.

So, what must we remember?

The money in the Social Security Trust Fund, which, by the way, is not in trouble -- yet, belongs to us.  There is no possible reason to hand it over to thugs such as Ryan because his cronies have emptied the cash drawer.  It's not an "entitlement" at all.  It is a contract.

We, of course, will have to "enforce" our contract in November of 2012.

MeanMesa's compliments to the President. 

The GOPCon Perversion of Social Security for US National Socialism

Oh dear.  Another snarky little blog ready to compare Social Security to Nazism?

Maybe we can undertake such a matter a little more academically than what one might encounter otherwise.  After all, very many "water cooler" conversations almost inevitably migrate to conclusions requiring that someone or something be deemed a "Nazi"  or a "Communist." 

National Socialism - The Academic Model

However, also perhaps too frequently, what conversation follows after such a conclusion almost automatically plunges into a murky swamp of misconceptions and illogical sorts of "mixtures" where the point one of our "water cooler combatants" desires is founded essentially on intuitive, background generalities rather than sweet, crisp ideological thinking.

After all, most Americans sporting a high school diploma define a Nazi as someone who invades his neighbors and kills Jews and defines a Communist as a Russian who is a "godless communist" and schemes to expand the Soviet empire.  Stepping aside from whatever broken shard of truth may rest somewhere in these overly casual definitions, we are left with a couple of rather specific economic models.

All the "Jew killing" and "godlessness" relate to the activities of people who, just by the way, happen to have found a home in one of these economic models.  This posting is about the economic models which are left when the historical melodrama has been removed, especially the national socialism model.  Even then, MeanMesa will find itself inescapably discussing the German example of national socialism, not because it is the only one, but because it is the most convenient.

So, let's give it a whirl.

We can begin with an abbreviated definition of the model which is relevant to this argument.

Germany in WWII

In this context, National Socialism, as the name implies, replaces the directing incentive for production found in more transactional systems with an elevated priority for national interests.  In the German model, an inebriating mixture of oligarchic industrialist interests combined with pressing national needs to form -- in the case of Germany's participation in WWII -- a nationally controlled and subsidized industrial base.

Farms are supposed to grow food!(image source)

In no time an unanticipated manufacturing efficiency developed.  German factories were not only employing vast numbers of Germans, but they were also producing war equipment on what we would now call "government contracts" at an astonishing rate.  The contemporary German monetary policy which made this possible, especially after the almost total economic collapse of the German economy a few decades earlier following WWI, rested squarely in the temporary benefits of national socialism.

If "regular socialism" is presumed, roughly, to be the model which values benefits to individuals in  a social  culture, "national socialism" may be, again roughly, regarded as one which values benefits to national objectives, in the case of Germany, the nation's war making capacity.

This MeanMesa post is not about the rather destructive slide of values which occurs when production priorities descend to national interests instead of market appetites.  Instead, we will look at an "accidental" side effect of the process.  That is, we will consider the advantages found in such a system as they develop for the oligarchs "standing in the sidelines."

The Oligarchs - Then and Now

As Germany gradually adopted this approach, certain industrialists were suddenly enjoying a new opportunity to really make some money.  These factory owners and bankers (The grandfather of the now infamous Bush family, for one...) would have made this "German money" in any case, but as things progressed, they found that their industrial and banking profits could be enhanced even more by their active participation in the decision making being done by the ever more powerful Nazi government.

So, although "national socialism" was primarily designed to benefit the national government, it turns out that, with just a little "tweeking" here and there, it could also serve to benefit this clutch of oligarchs who had, by this time, carefully insinuated themselves into the government decision making process. 

The point is that we now see a disturbing similarity to developments in our own country all these years later.  Right away, we see that this more modern version has the obvious catastrophe of contemporary military procurement, but when we look more closely, we see that the cancer has spread to current ambitions of the GOPCon crowd as they serve their oligarch masters with respect to the Social Security system.

Social Security was designed to service a social priority, that is, designed to provide a specific social value as an insurance system for the elderly.  Yet, we see now that the resources of the Social Security system are being targeted for a reassignment.  The dream of the neo-cons is to convert the system to serve as an economic benefit to the banking system, and inevitably, to the oligarchs who both control that system and benefit from it.

This modern version of national socialism does not direct the benefit of this conversion of the system to the nation so much as to the oligarchs.  One might think that this conclusion conveniently removes the process from the definition of classical national socialism, but maybe not.

When we carefully consider the flow of wealth the German industrial and banking oligarchs derived from the national socialist model once business priorities shifted from normal commerce to the service of the state, we can also see the potential flow of wealth which American oligarchs would enjoy if the Social Security system were diverted from its designed priority of social service to a new one which served, primarily, the banker and investor class.

The "prize" in WWII Germany was created by the reckless inflation of the German economy to finance the war effort.  A huge amount of "ready cash" became available as the German printing presses roared into action to pay for the Third Reich.  The modern version of this huge amount of "ready cash" relates to the $2.5 Tn Social Security Trust Fund.  

The national socialism model allowed the German government to detach the common value of its money -- the value traditionally enjoyed by Germans in the previous economy -- from its actual value in favor of government priorities.  The value of a German Mark began to depend on its usefulness to government priorities rather than to its commercial value to a German consumer.

The Modern Form of National Socialism

The recent effort in the US has similar underpinnings.  The intended value of a dollar in the Social Security Trust Fund was originally designed to provide the services of the program, not to provide investment opportunities for the oligarchs of the moment.  If such a change could be effected in the system, the "prize" would fall to these billionaire interests as an unearned influx of "ready cash" which could be exploited and expanded for their personal wealth and the conversion of the previous priority for providing a social service to one of providing for wealth redistribution would be inevitable.

FDR Signing Social Security bill (image source)

The oligarchs have already "tasted" the great rewards made possible by such a diversion of "ready cash."  The autocrat's heavily soiled TARP program moved literally trillion of dollars from the tax payers' General Fund into an "investment subsidy" for the oligarchs in the banking and investment class.  With this sudden influx of investment money, these billionaires, naturally, started to make huge profits almost at once.

The stock market, banking industries and other elite economic groups are showing an unprecedented increase in wealth thanks to the sudden influx of even more capital made possible by TARP.  The autocracy knew that since such folks make money based on the money they have to invest at the moment, the more money they had to invest -- again, coming from the huge TARP bailout -- the more money they would make.

A $2.5 Tn Social Security Trust Fund represents the same kind of opportunity for them.  All that is left to be decided is the means and mechanisms of a process which could successfully divert all that money from its intended use to a new one, from its role as a social "safety net" to a new role as a sudden, unearned influx of new investment money.

But, one might say, national socialism implies an economic model designed to serve the nation.  What has been described here is an economic model designed to serve the oligarchs.  This seeming contradiction is not as much of a problem as it might first appear.

After thoroughly inundating the national psyche with the idea of the synthetic value of "trickle down" economic stimulus models, the economic ruling class now firmly believes that a benefit to them is a benefit to the nation, one so valuable that it should be undertaken regardless of cost.  Swamped in the psychological hubris of the "uber-riche," these economic sociopaths see the very existence of the Social Security Trust as nothing other than a violent affront to their self-considered, divine right to make more and more profit.

And it's not just the money in the Trust they find so appealing, either.  If, through their carefully purchased Senators, they were able to raise the retirement age of Social Security to an even higher level, the resulting flood of workers into the labor market would further reduce the wages they must pay, increasing the profits of their businesses even more.

Finally, we must consider the remarkable success the oligarchs and their media have enjoyed as they "sold" this idea to the disastrously under-informed voter.  A very promising -- for the oligarchs -- anachronism has created a voting block to which these arguments have an unexpected appeal.

That situation comes from the growing numbers of Americans who were able to "out smart" the Social Security systems revenue stream while they were wage earners.  By "hook or by crook" these American workers found a way to not pay the Social Security taxes on years and years of their pay checks.  Now, they see others who did pay enjoying the social benefits of participating in the program in their retirements.

To the oligarchic class this remorse represents a potential advantage which can now be exploited politically during elections.  As these "non-paying" workers see their neighbors enjoying the retirement benefits of a life time of Social Security payments, they become an "army in the night" for manipulation by the billionaires salivating at the prospect of redirecting the Trust Fund monies into their "investment" schemes..

Last Words

MeanMesa thinks that should the oligarchs get this "second huge basket of unearned 'investment' cash," the economic advantages it will provide will permanently move the country's economic system to a new, even more deeply entrenched, wealth inequality.  Such an increased disparity of wealth will inevitably -- under our current system where "wealth = voice" -- result in the final plunge of what had previously been laissez faire capitalism into a dismal oligarchy which will, sooner or later, finally precipitate a violent "revolutionary correction," at least, an economic one.

Capitalizing on the current confusion between the late autocracy's unfunded Medicare program and the well funded Social Security system, the oligarch media has gone to great lengths to imply that the social system is in financial trouble.  The numbers paint quite a different picture, but it is a picture which Americans seldom see.  The economic ruling class will exploit this confusion to the fullest in hopes of realizing their "take over" dream.

We have to face facts.  National socialism re-directs immense amounts of money to purposes for which it was never allocated.  We have to see the implications of the current "targeting" of the Social Security Trust Fund in the same light.

We already have the American equivalent of the Krupp families.  We shouldn't be feeding them extra bones in the fleeting hope that they will, somehow, treat us better.