Tanned, Rested and Ready

Just back from a great vacation to the Occupied Territory of Hawai'i with sand in my hair, ears and other orifices. Lots of snorkeling ( or as my daughter coined it, dorkeling) with whales, turtles (including the rare hawk-billed!) and fishes, lots of hiking and boogie boarding and hot-tubbing in my never ending quest to relate to bourgeois culture.

So where are we these precious weeks later? See E. J. Dion's piece (link is screwed up) Deep in an intra-party debate over modern capitalism! Newt is joining Sarah P, decrying "crony capitalism where people pay each other off at the expense of the rest of the country." This is not "free enterprise" somehow. You hear this same nationalist-fake-populist rhetoric when talking drill-baby-drill, as if all the oil under "our" soil goes to good, hard working Americans.

Rick Perry has also jumped aboard, talking about a Bain Vultured company: "150 people lost their jobs there. And they made 20 million off of management fees."

Ron "We Are All Austrians Now" Paul sides with Mitt, saying: "I don't think they understand the Market." And of course the US Chamber of Commerce is also nervous, saying it is foolish for Republicans to attack Romney's record as a venture capitalist. Perry is a fool but Newt is shrewd and hopes to straddle the line between "understanding" and worshipping the Market. Joe Sixpack is just getting confused. Romney then gets to reach into his back pocket and beat them with the "class warfare" cudgel, saying: "The country already has a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy."

Of course, Joe the Plumber is a LITTLE envious of the new pick-up his venture capitalist neighbor is driving but... feels guilty. Mitt's words beat at the back of his exhausted skull: " I believe in a merit nation, an opportunity nation, where people by virtue of their education and the hard work and the risk taking and their dreams, (here is where he does the little head tilting Mormon smile) maybe a little luck, could achieve great things. And by the way, as they were successful, they didn't make the rest of us poorer."

Luck means God's favor, of course, and maybe Joe, you're just not leading a righteous enough life. And wealth is not zero-sum, the rising tide even lifts Africans. Once they sign up.