A Wee Voice, Whispering In Their Ear

I've been giving a lot of airtime to historian Heather Cox Richardson this week, and I'm about to do it again. This is from an essay she rolled out on Jan. 25:

In an Associated Press/NORC poll released yesterday, only 12% of those polled thought the president relying on billionaires for policy advice is a good thing. Even among Republicans, only 20% think it’s a good thing.

An oligarchy has been installed in Washington, but Richardson is telling us that people are generally unhappy about that. Even, as they say, across the aisle.

You know who's not unhappy? The oligarchs. And what do the oligarchs want? Before you say "Power" for ten thousand points, let's see if we can discern what they propose to do with it.

Who Is Mencius Moldbug, and Why Should You Care?

Someone who is sympathetic to the current regime, but who is far from a household name, Curtis Yarvin (known by the pen name Mencius Moldbug) has built a vaporous reputation, presumably has some Rasputin-like influence on the Silicon Valley oligarchy, and thus, by proxy, on Trump and his inner circle (Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, to name a few).

He was profiled recently in the NYTimes. J.D. Vance is a fan of Yarvin. Incoming State Department official Michael Anton is a fan.

The extent of his his influence is not clear (or not to me), but Yarvin's ideas sync up with what we're hearing from those he is talking to and with. Yarvin champions discarding our political system and running the government like a corporation (he actually says "a monarchy," as he seems to think they're the same. We'll come back to that).

Trump and Musk claim — on those rare occasions when they articulate their "vision" — that companies are efficient. You might have heard Trump say that we're better off with a businessperson, like him, running the government.

Silicon Valley resident deep thinker Peter Thiel, who funded Trump's political ambitions at an earlier point in the arc, has been saying this for a long time. "Get a CEO in there!" These guys would like to take it a bit further, actually, and run the government like a corporation.

So, back to Yarvin, aka Moldbug. When asked in this interview what is wrong with our quasi-democratic system, he says not that it is bad, per se, but that it is "very weak."

Perhaps it is understandable that people who run corporations wish the government were a corporation, too. Let's run down what is wrong with this idea. There is more that is wrong with it than is, at first, apparent.

The U.S. Government is attracting "Investor Interest."

The corporate structure makes it possible to raise capital in a variety of ways, contractually. But this is not what is meant by "running the government like a corporation." One of the charms of our government for someone put in charge of it, like Donald Trump, is that the U.S. government has already amassed vast capital.

Not only that, but every year we reach into our pockets, as taxpayers, to make sure the government has enough free flowing cash to work with.

Also, the government can print money when they need to. This is, in Silicon Valley parlance, a value-add. The government can issue Treasury bonds, too, which (for the time being) remain popular worldwide.

If they're of a mind to, the U.S. Government can sell off its lands and mining rights to advantage privately held companies, which Joe Biden did recently (the Willow oil project). And which Donald Trump is preparing to do, as well. The argument is made, naturally, that these deals are good for U.S. citizens and for the economy, generally, not just for an elected official who seeking to curry favor, or to reward those who bankrolled their election.

How Trump and Musk Think About the U.S Treasury

So. You don't need to set up the U.S. like a corporation in order to create financing for a bright idea called America. It's been done. One way to think about the U.S. Treasury and our cash reserves is as if the Founding Fathers created a very successful franchise, and everyone in this country with a social security number is a subscriber.

I don't view things that way, to be clear. But one could take this perspective. And I think we're witnessing this.

What Trump and Musk and Curtis Yarvin and Peter Thiel say they like about governing our great nation as if it was a company rather than a representative democracy (let's say this again) is that companies are efficient. But is that what they are most interested in, in truth? And, is efficiency the quality we should prize most in government, even if they might create more of it?

Run America like a Corporation? "THAT's a good idea, Ollie."

I think this claim of efficiency is disingenuous. Badly run companies expire all the time, and failure is not efficient. Even well-run, well-funded companies can get caught in crosswinds of one kind or another and perish. More than their founders tend to believe, there is a strong element of luck. If companies are occasionally delisted from the stock exchange (and they are), there is reason why your Index Fund continues to do well. Failing companies vanish, while new, flourishing ones take their place.

Notably, Donald Trump has started a variety of companies that have died quick and unhappy deaths. My source is the LA Times.

“The Trump Taj Mahal, which was built and owned by President Trump, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1991. The Trump Plaza, the Trump Castle, and the Plaza Hotel, all owned by President Trump at the time, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1992. THCR, which was founded by President Trump in 1995, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2004. Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., the new name given to Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts after its 2004 bankruptcy, declared bankruptcy in 2009.”

Then there’s the list of companies that had license agreements with President Trump that have failed. So many! So much failing. Though the success of a business venture is always hard to predict with certainty, a headstrong person with a short attention span, like Trump, is more prone than most CEO's to losing vast sums of other people's money, and needing to close up shop.

Certainly, Elon Trump knows that companies fail. Companies he runs, currently, may be among those, given time. Twitter’s price has plummeted to less than 25% of what Elon paid for it. There is a rumor afoot, meanwhile, that Musk will acquire Tik-Tok. What he would do with it (and what he would rename it) are fun to speculate about. But I digress.

Corporations are not models of stability. We can agree, at least, on that. This is relevant because we do not want what is in the U.S. Treasury used to fund a giant corporation. Corporations come, corporations go, but stability is desirable in government.

With all the ups and downs we have had as a nation, some of our success and stability, certainly, can be attributed to the political structure — a representative democracy — that Trump and Friends are so impatient with. The newsletter Cap 20, which has been keeping tabs on these plans to overhaul the Government, puts it this way:

With American democracy already at a crisis point, extreme right-wing operatives have crafted an authoritarian playbook that would push it over the edge, destroying the nation’s 250-year-old bedrock system of checks and balances to create an imperial presidency.

"I Could Make a Phone Call"

What these guys — Trump and his cronies — are really getting at is that corporations are easier to run than the U.S. Government. If you could only get rid of all the extra stuff, like Congress and the Judiciary, the many departments of government, and the career bureaucrats that run them, we could really got some work done. That's their big idea (and it's the only one they've got, really, so we should take a hard look at it).

There is nothing theoretical about this plan. It is being implemented. Trump has installed people that are loyal to him. His hope is that he'll be able to bark out an instruction on the phone from time to time ("invade Panama!"). People will snap to attention, adversaries will fall away, and Trump can get back to telling people what a genius he is.

The Allure and the Disaster of Not Listening to Anyone

I am not against corporate structure, in principle. I run a small (very small) company. And it's not my first. Let me make an even more terrible confession: I recognize and appreciate the allure of having one person (me) making decisions.

I will follow that up, quickly, by saying that in both government and in the corporate world, this is where people get in trouble, and things start to fall apart. Sometimes disastrously.

I work with several other principals at my small company. I have learned the hard way that before I charge ahead with my latest brilliant idea, I ought to check with Julien and David, and likely a few other people as well. I can trust these folks to tell me how my idea could be improved, or that it is flat-out wrong.

Have Donald and Elon learned that lesson? I have the impression they have not.

Please note, I am not saying I would do a better job than they would. I am saying that "the job," so called, is fantastically complex. I run a small company, I am diligent about it, and it's all I can do to keep it running in the right direction. I am saying that working patiently and letting dissenting opinions be heard is a good idea. You know. Like in a Democracy.

I would like to opine — so I will — that that reason our own Democracy seems to be operating so poorly lately is because of elected officials that hate the collaborative process, and are working hard, every day, to gum up the works. This is not exclusively those with fealty to Trump, but it seems to be those folks primarily, doesn't it?

Risk. Let's Remember that word. It's a good one.

As Michael Lewis pointed out in a book I fear many people missed (The Fifth Risk), career civil servants are the unsung heroes of contemporary civilization. The idea that you want to either fire them or fire the people they work for, people who actually understand their job — well, let's just try it, shall we? And we'll see how that goes.

It is possible we are running that experiment now. This year. The biggest bureaucracy the world has ever seen may soon be run by a few men who are distinguished by their short attention span and their tendency to shake off anyone who tells them "Hang on a second there, bub."

Now We Come To The Crux of the Matter —

Companies, whether poorly run or brilliantly run, need to make money. Even non profits (I ran one of those) need to make money, contrary to popular belief. Fundraising will take you only so far.

However — and here is the hard truth, from the point of view of champions of privatization — Government is involved in endeavors that do not aim to produce revenue, and that should not be required to produce revenue.

The Environmental Protection Agency, for example (established in the executive branch as an independent agency) goes about its business without looking toward the bottom line. And that is as it should be.

Rather than proceed to other examples, lets stay with that one. We once had terrible air in our cities, and terrible filth in our rivers. I remember, personally, testing the waters of local streams in Hartford, Connecticut in the 1970's with my chemistry teacher (I had an unusual chemistry teacher).

That water was deeply, colorfully, nauseatingly toxic. If your dog was to drink that water, you and the dog would both regret it deeply.

Most people understand this. Why doesn't the current administration? I don't really know. But, in life, there are terrible problems which arise, or that capture our attention. We must try to mend them, even if it costs money to do so.

Then there's climate change

I do not claim that climate change — the need to address it, to roll back its steady advance — is the only challenge we face. But it is formidable. And it does not get any smaller by turning one's back on it.

What is remarkable is that some parts of climate change amelioration, like the enabling of alternate, clean energy sources, are and will be good investments.

In the world of corporate finance, a good investment generally means a 20 to 25 percent annual return. Indications are that some forms of clean energy will cross that threshold.

But, what if they remain only moderately good investments? Does that mean we should not make them?

This is not a matter of philanthropy, of relentlessly doing the right thing, whatever it costs. Our situation as regards climate change may be more like running a non profit, which may fundraise, and may also bring in revenue, but, in the end, must address its Mission.

You will see that I have returned, somewhat stealthily, to our theme, which is corporatization. To be clear, I am not saying we should reshape the U.S. Government as a corporation. I'm saying that, as a metaphor, the non profit may be a better fit than a C Corps. If we want to look at government through a corporate lens.

Speaking of America, its Mission, and how we can get back on track, the Circular Economy should rightfully be part of this essay. I am constrained by time and space. Let's just say for now, shall we, that the full cost of operations can be, and often is, hidden. When we say fossil fuels are a good investment — and some do — is that true if major cities need to be relocated, and we have climate refugees in numbers that would make Trump's purported immigration problem look like a rush on the school cafeteria?

There, I've done it. The Circular Economy in one paragraph.

As to understanding a man who does not own a dog...

As to understanding a man who does not own a dog (so he does not need to worry about what it might eat or drink, what might make it sick or kill it), this is a tougher challenge to understand or to explain. Please write in and let me know if you have an explanation. It may be harder than solving for Climate Change, which only requires that we recognize it will take a tremendous amount of sustained effort, and capital, to turn it around. That effort must come from governments and from companies, too. It is, and will be, a public-private partnership. With that acknowledged, at last, we will do what we must, and everything we can.

I have recommended it before, but in closing (Yep. I'm outa here), allow me to steer you to What If We Get It Right? from my favorite marine biologist / policy expert / writer / teacher Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, and an impressive cadre of contributing writers.

The title says it all.