Obama's Pick for Commerce Secretary an Experienced Crony Capitalist
"Through a distinguished career in which he's led non-profits, government agencies, and large companies, he's been a fierce proponent of alternative energy. As a young man with a degree in hand from a prestigious law firm...he co-founded the natural resources defense council." Thus President Obama introduced his nomination for Commerce Secretary, John Bryson, this week.
A number of right-leaning press outlets have zeroed in on Bryson's history as an environmentalist, which certainly bodes dark days ahead for industries reliant on traditional forms of energy. But cause for concern extends much further than Bryson's environmentalism, argues Tim Carney.
President Obama's choice to lead the Commerce Department is a revolving-door former regulator who has spent his private-sector career earning millions from government-granted monopolies that depend on subsidies for their profits.
John Bryson was CEO of Southern California Edison; he's a director at Boeing, Disney, and electric-car maker Coda Automotive; and he's chairman of the board at solar energy giant BrightSource. All of these businesses rely heavily on government subsidies and government protection. This is a virtue in the eyes of Obama, who said Bryson has "the expertise that will help us create new jobs and make America more competitive in the global economy."
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Boeing, Disney, Coda, BrightSource and Southern California Edison all play in the government-directed economy, where businesses profit by working hand-in-hand with politicians and bureaucrats. John Bryson has made a career of this work. And President Obama sees him as the new model for the American economy.
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May '10
Re: Obama's Pick for Commerce Secretary an Experienced Crony Capitalist
I think this more than any other example is a clear demonstration as to why people generally tend to dispise larger Corporations. It's because the corporations figure out that if you don't want to become #1 on the "we here in DC hate you, Corporation, and we are coming after you" list that they better join them rather than try to hide from them. So they hire guys like this to work the system within the levithan of the Federal Goverment. The system gets manipulated by the large Corps and then the Govt turns around and uses them and before you know it, the whole thing becomes one big "circle back scratch" uh hum. The Corps and the Govt then work together to prevent start ups from getting a foot hold in the market and the ones that do already have a foot hold get crushed unless they find a way to game the system as well. Just look at Microsoft for example. Leading up to the Clinton Admin going after them the most they had contributed was 100,000 dollars and had no lobbyists and now look at them after they were gone after. It's disgusting.
May '10
Re: Obama's Pick for Commerce Secretary an Experienced Crony Capitalist
Just look at the guy, does he not look absoulutely swarmy. If you were to make a movie this is how you would want the guy to look. And to put an environmentalist into the commerce dept., that is a complete oxymoron if I ever saw one. If you still haven't figured out yet that this POTUS is purposely trying to destroy this country you are brain dead, or you support the destruction being wrought by this man and don't want to admit it. This is insidious and the Repubs are sitting around debating the rules while the POTUS and the Dems are breaking all of them. Get off your brains and fight, damn it. We are losing our country.
Dec '10
Re: Obama's Pick for Commerce Secretary an Experienced Crony Capitalist
He, like Obama, has never achieved anything, built anything, or run anything worthwhile. Even if he had, the NRDC is 3 strikes, and then ejection by the umpire. There may be no possibly worse nominee available and I am certain Obama knows that. The NRDC is an exceptionally bad actor that makes its living suing others, just because our foolish federal judiciary grants them the standing to sue that they do not have. They are typically joined by the Sierra Club, or the Audobon Society, in a litigation tag-team, but the NRDC is almost always one of the parties in just about every ridiculous lawsuit brought to stifle any project that gets dragged into court over some environmentalist heresy.
The NRDC is a "non-profit" protection racket. Buy them off or spend at least the next ten years in court; they don't mind the delay, as they are all on salary through the non-profit. The NRDC is salaried litigators; that's what they do.
Obama wants to make the founder of the salaried litigators the Secretary of Commerce.
Jun '10
Re: Obama's Pick for Commerce Secretary an Experienced Crony Capitalist
Everything Obama does depresses me. But when I see corporations like the oil companies sitting in those hearings like flacid balloons, or the pharmaceutical companies striking deals with Obamacare, or General Electric with their dancing elephants, or GM and Chrysler breaking the laws of bankruptsy, I gotta say, it may be too late to save this country.
Oct '10
Re: Obama's Pick for Commerce Secretary an Experienced Crony Capitalist
We don't need "Atlas Shrugged" films. Just turn on the news. Look at the housing collapse, stock market, and unemployment figures. And the President wants this guy as Commerce Secretary? This hack could play any number of roles in that book.
How about a small business person as Commerce Secretary? Did those geniuses in Washington DC think of that?
Jul '10
Re: Obama's Pick for Commerce Secretary an Experienced Crony Capitalist
Crony capitalist is a great formulation. I don't recall seeing it regularly more than 5-6 years ago.That, I think, is some of the best evidence that classical liberalism is resurgent.
What we need to do is replace all the "robber baron" lingo in history textbooks with crony capitalist. The dumber Marxists would be on board because it would seem to be more aggressively anti-capitalist rhetoric. But, if we can get moderately well-educated independents to correctly associate corporate-government backroom dealings with "crony" (i.e. phony) capitalism we might be able to undue some of the anti-competitive nonsense currently pitched as protection from market consequences.