Its hard to disagree with this gloomy assessment from one of the doyens of the American left. Noam Chomsky. He can be naggy, something of a whiner, and cranky, but, the prevalent trend of wealth concentration since the “stagflation” years of Jimmy Carter and the stratospheric cost of election campaigns are increasingly grating on the electorate.In China it is an act of faith to diss the Communist Party-CCP- for its monopoly of riches for the eighty million members. But, are things that different in the U.S. ?…
Noam Chomsky:Elections have become a charade, run by the public relations industry. After his 2008 victory, Obama won an award from the industry for the best marketing campaign of the year. Executives were euphoric. In the business press they explained that they had been marketing candidates like other commodities since Ronald Reagan, but 2008 was their greatest achievement and would change the style in corporate boardrooms. The 2012 election is expected to cost $2 billion, mostly in corporate funding. Small wonder that Obama is selecting business leaders for top positions. The public is angry and frustrated, but as long as the Muasher principle prevails, that doesn’t matter.
While wealth and power have narrowly concentrated, for most of the population real incomes have stagnated and people have been getting by with increased work hours, debt, and asset inflation, regularly destroyed by the financial crises that began as the regulatory apparatus was dismantled starting in the 1980s.
None of this is problematic for the very wealthy, who benefit from a government insurance policy called “too big to fail.” The banks and investment firms can make risky transactions, with rich rewards, and when the system inevitably crashes, they can run to the nanny state for a taxpayer bailout, clutching their copies of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. Read More:http://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog/2011/04/noam-chomsky-who-owns-the-world/aaa