1/27/2011

Things That Ought to Be Obvious: Greedy Bastards Don't Give a Shit About Your Jobs:
Here's everything you need to know about American capitalism in the 21st century contained in a single sentence: "Google's push to further expand a work force that grew by 23 percent last year may not be as well received on Wall Street, where the Internet search leader's spending has annoyed some investors who would prefer a more frugal approach in hopes of fatter returns." This comes in an article that discusses how Google is going to hire 6200 new employees this year, which is, you know, generally considered awesome news.

Except if you're a greedy cocksucker who can't get enough cash or cock, which apparently "some" of Google's investors are.

In other words, even if the Dow or NASDAQ or JAGOFF or whatever index used to track their stock investments are going up and up, even if they've pretty much doubled in the last three years, oh, no, that's not enough for the greedy cocksuckers. You could bring 'em a barrel o' gold and a sack o' dicks and they'll wonder why they don't have two of each.

It's no wonder that all the Wall Street pukes that the Obama administration keeps rotating in like batteries for Dick Cheney's mechanical pseudo-heart can't come up with a way to jump start employment in the nation: they're programmed not to. They're programmed to merely get the most money for their clients. Remember: JP Morgan, Goldman (suck our) Sachs, Citigroup, none of 'em exist to create jobs. They exist to make cash money, ethics and morality and unemployment rates be damned.

Conservatives cling to this truly, blindly utopian notion about the innate good of vast amounts of money in the hands of private citizens and companies, that all of a sudden corporations, flush with tax cuts on incomes and capital gains, will go on a hiring spree and solve all our problems. It is a lie that so many Americans want desperately to believe because to do otherwise would undermine the very basic notions of capitalism that some of us got taught in school (do they teach this shit anymore or is it not on the test?), that supply and demand naturally create more jobs which makes more money which makes more demand which creates more jobs and on and on until everyone is happy and employed and housed and health-insured (privately) and has guns and a fuckable spouse and their athletic boy children and pretty girl children will give them grandkids and they'll all have enough money to retire and live happily ever fucking after, a-fucking-men.

Even if we know, we know, we know that such an America ceased existing, if it ever did, that's the lie that the right sells, and it's such a comforting bottle of snake oil, such a delicious snipe, that it's successfully bullshitted enough people to give it electoral power.

But the bitter, awful, goddamned backwards truth is that even if a company, like, say, Google, wants to hire a shitload of people (in the U.S. and elsewhere), that affects the bottom line, and perhaps Google's stock price will drop below 610 because of nothing else than a fear that it will drop below 610 and perhaps that means the NASDAQ will drop a couple of points and perhaps that means some client of Goldman Sachs will be sad because he can't buy that new fifth house and then Goldman Sachs will call William Daley, Obama's chief of staff from JP Morgan Chase, and say, "What the fuck is going on? C'mon, you know what's important." And then a rule will be changed that will let that sad fucker raid his company's retirement fund and...Jesus, who knows how this shit goes anymore. The complete merging of corporate, financial, and governmental interests has rendered the average citizen as less than a pawn on a chess board. Pawns at least go somewhere before they're sacrificed. Pawns at least have a role in the game.

Whenever you hear anyone, Democrat or Republican, idiot or genius, extol the superiority of capitalism, ask them to define the term. If they go back to that high school definition, scream, "Fuck, no" at them, no matter how old or delicate. It'll get their attention. And then ask them again to define capitalism in a global context. Ask them to define it in the wake of the rise of unregulated investment firms. C'mon, push, 'em, and then tell them that Google's investors are upset that Google wants to hire people that they need to run the business. You got that? It's an act of defiance to get more employees in order to meet demand. Tell us again about almighty capitalism solving all our problems.

And you can bet that other corporations are looking to see what happens here as a way of measuring whether or not it's worth it to hire if it means a point or two less on the profit margin at the end of the fiscal year. The greedy cocksuckers have always run the joint. Now, though, not only are the checks on their greed gone, but the notion of having checks (in the form of taxes or regulation) is seen as inimical to the corporations' obvious good.