Let Them Eat iPads!

Whether or not Marie Antoinette ever uttered the phrase that modern myth-makers have attributed to the much maligned monarch to help spark the French Revolution, there is less doubt surrounding the harsh realities of a peasant's life in late18th century France. Rising bread prices, unemployment, rising war-related debt, an inefficient financial system leading to difficulties managing said debt exacerbated by the burden of an inadequate system of taxation and a ruling class disconnected and isolated from the realities of the day-to-day life of the population are all cited as causes leading up to the storming of the Bastilles. Fortunately, as North Americans finish their Labor Day holiday (Labour up north, eh), they can enjoy those picnic hotdogs all the more in the knowledge we've come a long way since 1789, as democracy and capitalism have spread and taken hold guaranteeing an equal voice and opportunity for all.

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting
- Milan Kundera

The trick you see is to help/make a majority of the people ignore the relevant facts by distorting or drowning them out. Let's start with the holiday itself. The first Labor Day celebration in the US was nothing but a parade organized by unions in New York on September 5, 1882, as a celebration of "the strength and spirit of the American worker." Their goals were simple: decent wages, an eight-hour workday and the right to organize. The national holiday wasn't instated until twelve years later in 1894 when President Grover Cleveland needed good publicity cover for, get this, crushing a labour strike by sending in troops during the economic depression known as the Panic of 1893. Politicians and labour leaders were content to keep the holiday in September, far from the growing popularity of May Day. Both the workers and Cleveland turned out to be the losers as Grover lost the Democratic nomination in 1896 and the reforms labour sought did not come about for nearly half a century when the Depression-era fair labour laws that were passed under Franklin D. Roosevelt finally set standards like the eight-hour day and an end to child labour.

Those laws (and the US hegemony of the post-WWII world) set the stage for an era of unparallelled growth and prosperity. All this success inevitably bred the hunger for more, and more now. Satiating today's desires became more important than tomorrow's which were less pressing than next week's. In the business world this was reflected in a culture that rewarded results this quarter through increasing stock prices and executive pay and neglected the necessity for planning for a few years down the road. People worked longer hours, women entered the workforce then they took on two jobs or overtime. When this wasn't enough they simply financed it in an orgy of credit cards, payday loans and even turned their homes into cash machines. Of course all of this was cheered on by corporate America which adapted by shifting the entire economy away from manufacturing towards financing all that debt. General Electric doesn't make their money producing light bulbs, they are now first and foremost a finance company. This seemed great for everyone for awhile, those at the bottom needed money to keep buying more stuff, those at the top needed somewhere to invest all the cash they were making and the financial intermediaries gladly created ever more complex securities to shuffle the money from one to the other.

Well, we know all know how that wound up. Luckily the US today is nothing like France in 1789, you remember - "Rising bread prices, unemployment, rising war-related debt, an inefficient financial system leading to difficulties managing said debt exacerbated by the burden of an inadequate system of taxation and ruling royalty disconnected and isolated from the realities of the day-to-day life of the population". We're told by government statistics that inflation is under control so bread prices can't be a problem; somehow printing trillions to bail out the banks and to lend them at near zero interest rates hasn't affected prices. Oh, that's right, core inflation is what they talk about. Core, meaning the price of everything that we don't need to live, as it excludes the price of food and energy. Lucky those new iPads are tasty and keep us warm at night. Meanwhile, the financial industry has done a great job of using their free cash to bid up the price of food and oil.

"Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become"
- Arthur Schopenhauer

Incomes have risen to meet the real increased cost of living - if you were already rich to start with at least. Today, he richest 1% of households earn as much each year as the bottom 60% put together taking in a quarter of the nation's income; they possess as much wealth as the bottom 90%; with each passing year, a greater share of the nation’s treasure flows through their hands and into their pockets giving them control of 40% of the nation's riches. In twenty-five years they have more than doubled their share of income while wealth rose from 33% of the total. "Meh", says Joe six-pack, "it's not so much how you divide the pie that matters, it's how big the pie is, besides, one day, I could be part of the 1%." Unbeknownst to him, median incomes declined outright from 1999 to 2009 for those lucky enough to still have a job. For 90 percent of American workers, incomes have stagnated or fallen for the past three decades, while they've ballooned at the top, and exploded at the very tippy-top: By 2008, the wealthiest 0.1% were making 6.4 times as much as they did in 1980 (adjusted for inflation).

Cruelly, the August jobs report released just last week showed that no jobs were created which really represents a net loss as at least 125,000 are needed to keep up with population growth. Since the end of 2007, America’s potential labour force – working-age people who want jobs – has grown by over 7 million but the number of Americans with jobs has shrunk by more than 300,000. We're told the unemployment rate has been over 9% for a couple of years which sounds horrible enough but is nothing when compared to reality. Again, statistics are manipulated to manufacture cold comfort as reported unemployment only measures active job seekers and takes no account of underemployment. Taking into account long-term discouraged workers who were defined out of official existence in 1994 and those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time work, the SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate is 22.8%.

Did someone say rising war related debt? Again, if you live in America, about half of you have been convinced that the debt was either created by greedy teachers or is part of President Obama's plan to sell you into indentured servitude to his Muslim Kenyan drunk uncle. Step back, get off the Tea Party, Koch crack. If the Bush-era tax cuts are renewed next year, that policy will by 2019 be the single largest contributor to the nation's public debt -- "the sum of annual budget deficits, minus annual surpluses" -- according to new (well, May) analysis from the non-partisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Graph's on the right. These tax breaks, combined with the cost of fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will account for nearly half the public debt in 2019, measured as a percentage of economic output.

Oh, it only gets worse war worriers. These figures surely underestimated the costs associated with almost 50% of returning troops eligible to receive some level of disability payment and more than 600,000 treated so far in veterans’ medical facilities. But the social costs, reflected in veteran suicides (which have topped 18 per day in recent years) and family breakups, are incalculable. Am I the only one twisted enough to find it funny that so many people have been convinced to back the union busting way of governors from Wisconsin to Ohio, Michigan and Florida by snake-oil salesmen to cut deficits when in fact it was increased defense spending, together with the Bush tax cuts that were key reason why America went from a fiscal surplus of 2% of GDP when Bush was elected to its parlous deficit and debt position today. That is the real reason wieners like Rep. Eric Cantor say the country needs to find savings elsewhere before helping the people of Vermont after a catastrophe.

Efficient modern financial market have turned out to be nothing but a pipedream as they've turned out to be worse than those in the time of Jean Valjean. We've spent countless trillions propping up a system that is rotten to the core. Without Faux News or lunatics screaming CNBC about subsidizing deadbeat homeowners creating moral hazard we may have done just that, keeping a roof over people's head instead of, you know, creating moral hazard by giving cash to the bank. The muppets keep droning on spouting supposed financial forecasting knowing full well that economists are nothing but people who see something working in practice and try to figure out if it would work in theory. Voila, socialized losses and privatized gains for the banks. The financial system creates NO wealth on its own, its value lies in its ability to efficiently allocate capital, to smoothly transfer money from savers to spenders. The key word is efficiently, there shouldn't be much friction in the system. Yet the µ (Mu) has been rising - the financial industry has increase its share of US domestic corporate profits from 16% in 1985 to over 40% today.

One need look no further than the hostage taking of Dollarmageddon this summer for proof of a nation having difficulties managing its debt. Here we see the malevolent influence of money on the gears of power as the paid lackeys parading as congressmen in Washington do the bidding of their corporate masters, creating a crisis to allow them to implement their agenda. This Kibuki theatre play is worsened by the false-front democracy of a two-party system where one is dumb, greedy, evil and only exists to be re-elected in the next cycle and the other is well, a bit dumber, greedier and more evil hoping to be elected in the next cycle. In fact, faced with a near insurmountable mountain of debt and only two ways to narrow the deficit, lowering spending and raising taxes, not one of the presidential candidates for the dumber, greedier and eviler side would consider the latter. That'll get you a credit downgrade and qualify as a difficulty managing debt.

Bigger? Click.

The final ingredient in the French Revolution, a ruling class disconnected and isolated from the realities of the day-to-day life of the population, is in heavy supply in today's America. Wall Street controls Washington through K Street with no regard to Main Street. It turns out that at a time when austerity for everyone but the rich in order to pay back the banks leaving less money for the economy is the only accepted prescription offered by the ruling class, it's better to have no government like in Belgium. You'd expect some empathy when thanks to the recession, the number of American families no longer earning enough to pass the minimum threshold to pay income tax has risen from 30% to 47%. Never mind that the number of children now living in poverty has risen to 15 million, 21% of all children in the US, that 45 million people rely on food stamps to survive, or that these people pay a myriad of other more regressive taxes such as payroll, sales, state and local - no, the crazier party believes they should pay more. That's right, CEO's who are massively rewarded with higher pay for helping their corporations dodge taxes don't need to pay any taxes (a must read report, infographic on the left), but the poor, well, they need to pay more. Forget that it's those people spending that keeps the economy going - consumer spending accounts for 70% of economic activity - they need to be taxed more. About the only elite who doesn't seem blind to the chaos caused by the chasm between us and them is one of the three richest men in the world, Warren Buffet, who took the the NY Times op-ed page to call for an end to the coddling of the super-rich. What, and have them pay as much as under Clinton? Outrageous!

Our democracy is but a name. We vote. What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real -- though not avowed -- autocrats. We choose between 'Tweedledum' and 'Tweedledee'.
- Helen Keller

In fact, some elites have become so blinded with rage by the situation somehow caused by the rest, they've decided to pull up stakes and let the poor fend for themselves. Yep, John Galt himself would be proud. Those who in their benevolence choose to stay and help us poor plebs will be sure to fight to ensure that all of their tax advantages stay in place. Of course the politicians in Washington, most of whom are part of the 1% anyway, have every incentive to only listen to the richest voices, they'll need jobs after getting out of office, self-interest and all, you know? Strangely - or more correctly - predictably enough, turns out senators only listen to the rich (PDF of study here). No wonder that slightly more evil party even thinks poor people voting is un-American.



It's all about convincing enough of the people things are fine and lies, such as the one that businesses aren't hiring because of taxes and regulation. The corporate tax rate is supposedly the highest in the world at 35% yet over 100 companies on the S&P 500 paid less than 20%, GE earned billions at home while paying nothing as did at least 15 others. Media, from Hollywood to your iPad has served her corporate masters well as it seems as long as we can buy more stuff, never mind if it's made in China and sold at Wal-Mart, everything is better than before. Amazingly, with all of the propaganda their exposed to, when asked about income distribution, Americans tend to think they live in Sweden, wish they lived in a Socialist utopia but in fact live in Turkmenistan or the Uganda. No offense Turkmen and Ugandans.

American workers' have seen their number of hours worked per week rise along with their productivity which magically seems to grow corporate profits but not median salaries. They put in an average of 122 more hours per year than Brits, 137 hours more than Japanese workers and 378 hours (nearly 10 weeks!) more than Germans. It's the only country besides Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Samoa, and Swaziland that doesn't legislate paid time off for new moms and the only country in the OECD where a right to weekends off and paid vacation time isn't guaranteed. The only explanation of satisfaction for those living in a country where income mobility is falling and people get excited when McDonald's is hiring is some weird twisted ur-myth of Ben Franklin-Horatio Alger-Henry Ford where through hard work one can attain the American Dream and become rich and successful. To get ahead though, a 70-hour work week has become the new standard. I've got news for anyone who doesn't realize the economic catastophe of the past few years will make it easier for employers to demand more while giving less. Is there any wonder why illegal drug use is at a decade high and prescription drug abuse has surged 400% in a decade while mental illness has skyrocketed?

Reality doesn't hit most until they're one of the 50 million Americans without health insurance and they get sick in a country that spends the most for health care (about double) for less than average results. They don't care until joining the 25.3 million Americans out of work, forced to work part-time, unable to find a full-time job or have given up searching for a job in the past month. Giving up is easy when they realize there is one job for every 4.5 job seekers. If you're wondering where the jobs are check out the chart to the right. By avoiding the responsibilities of taxes that mere people are required to pay and squeezing ever higher productivity out of workers while firing domestically and hiring elsewhere, American corporations are sitting pretty while workers only defense in the past, unions, are losing more and more power. In fact, the ratio of corporate profits to wages is now higher than any time since before the Great Depression. Apple, Exxon and Goldman Sachs don't exist to make our lives better in the crony capitalism that we've allowed to develop, in fact they seem a lot better at making them worse - just like the economy is going to get on our present course, hello double dip, er, recession I mean! Will it take a Robespierre to rally the retards or will enough people simply pitching tents on Wall Street September 17th to let the banksters know the other 99% are suffering? Either way, I'd say let capitalism make you rich and invest in a good, solid guillotine maker.



More suggested reading and doing:
Can the Middle Class be Saved?
The Rise of the New Global Elite
Of the 1%, By the 1%, For the 1%
Occupy Wall Street September 17th
US Uncut
Great charts and graphs here and here

Blindness

Last week London was hit by mindless violence, so mindless it spread to Liverpool, Leeds and Birmingham. Amazingly, the social safety net led to this by both existing and being torn apart. Daily Mail readers (US translation: Faux News watchers) have and will continue to read stories increasing their fear of the feral youths, part of an evil socialist experiment breeding a violent underclass with government handouts. Meanwhile, liberal hearted Guardian readers (MSNBC in the USA I guess?), those who are worried about the impact of fiscal austerity on vulnerable communities, will find material online that confirms their world-view. Most importantly though, thanks to mother media (sure is great to be back from vacation and in her loving arms - not!), we'll all know for certain that the riots were completely unpredictable and the only way to deal with them is to further increase the police state and take away more personal liberties. Outlawing masks? Lucky there's no Halloween I guess.

Before we forget, the spark that set off the riots was the police shooting of Mark Duggan. Of course police brutality couldn't ever lead to trouble in a civilized society.



Rodney King anyone? Can't we all just get along? Innocent bystanders are never victims either like good old Reginald Denny. Nothing but a random blast from the past.

In a city like London - where at least 333 people have died in police custody since 1998 and not a single officer has been convicted - we're not even allowed to bring up how racial profiling could have been a factor in the undercurrent of rage. It's unimaginable that in the most unequal city in the developed world, where fleets of Rolls Royces ferry oligarchs, tycoons and oil sheiks by them everyday, a mob of youths could flaunt the law in a bid for a piece of faux-luxury, from plasma TVs to fast fashion. A rioter wouldn't say "Why are you going to miss the opportunity to get free stuff that's worth loads of money?" as he knows that the looting of a store isn't tolerated but the looting of the entire economy is rewarded with bailouts, golden parachutes and sky-high financial-sector salaries? It's not like one thing we know about riots is that they are underpinned by perceptions of illegitimacy of authority. Being from a place where upward mobility depends not just on having gone to a handful of top schools (Oxford, Cambridge, LSE), but on having the right accent, postcode, and background they should know to just stand by while the super rich get super richer and the rest hope to tread water. If we questioned any of this we wouldn't be trying to look for solutions, we'd be condoning the violence. Almost makes you wonder why this clip was only aired once on the BBC?



Back to Mark Duggan for a moment. He's been variously described as a hardened gangster and drug dealer or a loving family man, again depending on where you choose to get your propaganda. The media would never use this to distract us from what's important as we know neither love nor drug policies ever lead to violence. I wonder if many of the areas involved in the riots contain strong gang elements which are the product of silly drug laws in the UK which enrich criminal gangs.

No, probably not, after all, thanks to the media we're always well informed and therefore made all the safer. Live conversation between an ITV reporter and a young London rioter:
ITV Reporter: Is rioting the correct way to express your discontent?
Young Londoner: You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?
ITV Reporter: ...
Young Londoner: Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you.

It would be blasphemous to suggest there are better ways to spend millions of pounds than on a royal wedding in the middle of an economic downturn that has brought about austerity measures. Sounds a bit like 1981, but no, there aren't any other parallels. The Conservative, cost-cutting government of that time was led by a monster named Thatcher while this Conservative led ConDem, cost-cutting government is led by a two-headed monster called CamClegg. That wedding was between a prince named Charles and a commoner named Diana; this one paired their kid Willie and girl named Kate, a, well, commoner with a hotter sister. The UK riots that took place in that summer of 1981 centered in Brixton and race played a major part. Thirty years later, the riots didn't happen until well into the summer and only some of the problems were in Brixton, and we've already established that race had nothing to do with it, right? Patterns, smatterns, this stuff is unpredictable and needs a heavy hand; after all people can even see patterns in the burning of toast or Wal-Mart receipts that prove their belief in 2000 year old fairy tales.



What about that whole austerity thing? Spending cuts couldn't have been a factor causing riot-like problems, could they? If only there was some proof that they do. If cuts caused the problems they do, the government would avoid them by not throwing billions away in faraway lands such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Hundreds of millions to bomb Libya for not honoring oil deals signed with BP on the heals of releasing a convicted terrorist who may have had something to do with the Lockerbie bombing. No, it would be Marxist propaganda to say that economic reality could be a driver of social upheaval. To say that the problems of youth unemployment, cuts in services for young people, the shockingly bad state education in poor areas, the shortage of council-built or affordable housing along with the startling growth in inequality as social mobility has fallen off the cliff over the past thirty years had anything to do with the UK riots would be saying that the rioters had a preconceived political agenda for their actions.

It would be idiotic to notice that the youth of the world seem to be organizing around the idea that they are the ones who will pay the price for the failures of crony capitalism. No, it's just an isolated cloudburst over Camden Lock not a superstorm spreading from Tahrir Square to Syntagma Square to Puerta del Sol (lucky I got outta Spain before pope B-16 got there, too bad the people have to pay for it). Since each example is very different from the others we can ignore the similarities, the lost generation of youths, close our eyes and not make connections with what is happening in Chile, Spain, Greece and even across the north Africa and the Middle East from Tunisia to Israel.

Of course it's silly to try to link events happening half a world away. Fortunately there hadn't been any disturbances in the UK itself that could have given some clue to the underlying tension. It would be even easier to make a connection if they had anything to do with making it harder for the youths to improve their future. No, the student protests that followed the tripling of tuition fees just last November were merely disturbances in which opportunistic vandals splashed some paint on Prince Charles' Rolls-Royce. It wasn't a reminder how governments can afford to bail out banks but the cost of education is somehow beyond their reach creating a system that will see student's loan burdens double between this year and next. Somehow, everywhere you look in this system, the general premise is to keep you indebted and under constant financial pressure just to have a marginally comfortable life. If only nearly a half million people had marched this March to demonstrate their displeasure with funding cuts that finance the tax breaks of some of the very corporations who saw their stores smashed last week, maybe we could have known something was up and done something about it. Funny we haven't heard about Nick Clegg's Nostradamus-like prediction way back even before the election. He's probably just hoping no one brings up his youthful dalliance with arson. Oops, too late.



Instead, we'll let the media paint a picture the plutocrats want us to see, a blurry canvas of racism with stacatto streaks of mindlessness and capricious dabs of unpredictability. As in the aftermath of the 2005 Banlieue uprising in France, this will facilitate the continued drift toward authoritarianism. In somewhat similar circumstances the political right was the major beneficiary as Super Sarkozy's rise from interior minister to president owed a great deal to his role in expressing the anxious aggression of a mass constituency that lived far away from the burning cars and public buildings. In the UK it may help the BNP or even Cameron's Conservative coalition if he can just get tough enough, further entrenching the police state. New powers will be bestowed on our benevolent protectors and personal freedoms will be further eroded.

This seems to be the pattern of problem solving in the 21st century, the implementation of policies that further exacerbate the completely unexpected problem. No one could have foreseen an event like 9/11 coming, not with the continued occupation of Palestine, the bombing of the same ill-fated towers in 1993, the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the USS Cole bombing in 2000 and the CIA being ordered not to kill bin Laden ten times before the Twin Towers were taken out. Instead of examining the lead up and looking for cures, the remedy was to make the problem worse by bombing Afghan villagers and imposing a democratic government on Iraq by killing a million people. Presto, more hatred and terrorism.

The financial crisis of 2008? Completely blindsided almost every economist as the explosion in soon-to-be-toxic triple-A securities created to feed the furnace of the perpetual growth fantasy was hard to notice. Unless you looked. The solution? You guessed it. The debts of banks that were too-big-to-fail were passed onto states that are too-big-to-bail facilitating further consolidation of the financial monoliths. The credit rating agencies such as S&P who gave the triple-A ratings to the sliced and diced derivatives for a fee have gone from mere service providers to policy dictators(and not just for PIIGS anymore, America too! Debt has been piled onto debt in order to solve a debt crisis. Executive pay tied to short term results has returned and even surpassed insane pre-crisis levels. Corporations and the rich who were the beneficiaries of deregulation and tax cuts have been donned as our job creators and saviours while hoarding trillions in cash from record profits thanks to being granted interest free loans, extensions on tax cuts and the magic of quantitative easing. Oh, and there's promises for more.



So there is no single meaning in what happened last week in London and elsewhere. Sure, it was more Harrod's Boxing Day than Paris '68 but there are connections that we can make, that we should make, that we need to make. Much is the consequence of decisions made by governments and there is little hope of rapid improvement. The same politicians now denouncing the mindless violence of the mob all supported a system of political economy that was as unstable as it was pernicious. They should have known that their policies would lead to disaster. They didn't know. Who then is more mindless?

Let's assume that the Ruling Class was taken by surprise by these events. This presupposes ignorance of the fact that austerity regimes and slave wage capitalism ultimately lead to demonstrations, strikes, riots and revolutions. I would argue that they know perfectly well what they are doing. Rebellions like this one are not simply a cost of doing business as usual they are, in fact, opportunities to further impose their will on the populace as the media minions stoke calls for more draconian measures and police powers. There will be finger pointing and hand wringing by the so-called left but the program will move forward. We are trapped by the late-stage decadence Marx predicted as we have finally created a crisis that seems to have no solution. A succession of treatments have caused side-effects we would know to avoid by opening our eyes and reading the label. The symptoms will get worse if we don't scream the solution in unison - yes, revolution. More likely though, we'll all go back to being happy again with plenty of nothing.

My Hero!

Well, it seems that at least one person has been reading my blog:



Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, is usually referred to as the only socialist in the US Congress. If being socialist means wanting a level playing field in which we all have an equal opportunity to contribute to society, you can definitely keep calling me a socialist.

I Must Be Dreaming

This is far too easy. Way too inviting. Someone pinch me, please. No wait, it's real? Golly, how great is this, I get to write a post about two things I love, NFL football and the joke that is Rush Limbaugh. Cool. Word is the aforementioned sultan of slime, er, pill-popping propagandist, uh, that leader of the lost is joining forces with Dave Checketts, owner of the NHL's St. Louis Blues, to buy the St. Louis Rams of the NFL. A man who has made his living from sowing the seeds of hatred and trumpeting the false propaganda of the right wants to own an NFL franchise. Oh, the sweet delicious irony of it all, where to start?!

He wants to buy the St. Louis Rams, yes the Rams who have lost 15 straight games. At this moment they may be the worst team I've ever seen play, and I remember the first year of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, although admittedly, vaguely. BTW those same Bucs along with the Rams, Tennessee Titans and Kansas City Chiefs are the only remaining teams without a victory so far this year at 0 and 5. Meanwhile, the New York Giants, Denver Broncos, Indianapolis Colts and Minnesota Vikings are at 5 and 0 and along with the New Orleans Saints at 4 and 0, are the last undefeated teams standing.

He wants to buy an entertainment business in a city where he hates, distrusts, reviles and despises over half the population. 51.3% of the population of St. Louis is black. Not to mention the fact that the majority of the assets (players) employed by the team are black. I thought Rush viewed NFL football today as "a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons". Players have already come out to say they would never play for a Rush-owned team. I don't care if Rush claims to be the least racist talk show host, or if some of the quotes attributed to him may be false (try these for starters, then here, or here), there is no denying that he engages in race baiting. It's an tried and true tactic, one that he seems to be perfecting in his anti-Obama campaign. From hoping his president fails to blaming Obama for black kids beating up white kids on buses to stirring up fears of a hidden socialist agenda, it plays on people's fears and it's dangerous.



Despite being so vehemently opposed to Obama's socialist plan, Rush wants to do business in a socialist market. Yes the NFL is socialist, they share about two-thirds of revenues (mostly TV rights) equally among the 32 teams. You see, the NFL understands that capitalism is a beast that in many cases needs to be tethered in order to level the playing field to allow the market to function properly. In order to avoid a world where the powerful elite are allowed to set the rules in order to become even more powerful, the league prefers to see parity amongst the teams, allowing each an opportunity to be successful and thus creating an exciting, competitive atmosphere that attracts a diverse fan base. The analogy this seems to have with the US economy is almost uncanny; if only Reagan (or at least his puppet-masters) and his snake-oil salesmen had known that some controls can actually make for a better product, the entire world would be a much better place today.

Rush can supply all the pain killers the team needs while blaming the users for destroying the country.

He'd also become the only league owner to weigh more than the average of his offensive line.

Oh, I agree with Al Sharpton for once.

Well, actually, on second thought, I don't agree with Reverend Al on much. Sharpton's argument seems to rest on the need for the NFL to hold up to 'standards'. Um, guess he's missed out on what the NFL 'standards' are of late. I mean what kinda crazy juice does Al drink?

A franchise sale would have to be approved by 24 league owners, something that's never going to happen. Think about it, if you owned anything worth over a billion dollars, would you allow anything that could lessen it's value get anywhere near it? Colts owner Jim Irsay came out with this gem, "I myself couldn’t even think of voting for him".

His misogynist attitude will really work well with the NFL's attempt at wooing female fans. Witness the success the league seems to have had promoting Breast Cancer Awareness Month during week 4. I wonder what Rush would have to say about women even watching football, and god forbid they're ugly?

Perhaps the biggest reason Limbaugh's bid will be rejected was his ill-fated short-lived affiliation with the NFL in 2003. He was ultimately forced to resign following comments he made about Philadelphia Eagle quarterback Donovan McNabb on Sunday NFL Countdown that included, "I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They're interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there's a little hope invested in McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn't deserve". At the time, the Eagles had a 36-22 record in games which McNabb had started and he has gone on to lead his team to 5 NFC championship games and one Super Bowl. As usual, Rush's comments were simply racist and he was only trying to stir up controversy. The irony here is that when Limbaugh's bid gets rejected, he'll play the victim card to the hilt. I can already hear his complaints of being victimized by the liberal media. Yet there he was on his show a couple of years back bemoaning the fact that he had turned McNabb into a victim. You reap what you sow Rush, eat it.

The bottom line is the NFL is too smart to let Limbaugh into it's exclusive club. The ultimate irony is that the other owners may agree with 99% or what Rush spews forth, but will reject his application for purely capitalistic reasons. His admittance to the club would bring down the value of the assets of the entire league, he would be toxic debt that would drag down everything around it. Huh, sounds familiar for some reason.