Friday, January 21, 2011

Do Your Part For The Corporatist States of America!

"The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes." - Mark Twain
Back during the first Depression, a bunch of proposals by one Gerard Swope, president of General Electric, reached the ear of President Roosevelt and went on to become the reviled National Recovery Administration. Oh, hey, guess what?I'm not saying that this morning's headline sent a Santayana-esque chill up my spine, but I'm ready to see the ol' Blue Eagle banners any minute now...

21 comments:

  1. So this elsewhere "Like having the fox guard the hen house..."
    This will not end well.

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  2. That's when being in the NRA had nothing to do with guns...

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  3. Wonder what, exactly will be clasped in the eagle's claws?
    Was George Soros busy?
    Watch for a twelve-member Supreme Court next...

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  4. As a friend who worked for General Electric says,

    "You can't spell greed with out GE."

    Gerry

    HT to John H.

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  5. Among my souveneirs is a plaque made from a wooden box, with the logo on it. Appropriately, it's black ink for the NRA and the eagle.

    From a book-keeping standpoint, of course, it should have been red ink.

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  6. "When every American housewife understands that the Blue Eagle on everything that she permits into her home is a symbol of its restoration to security, may God have mercy on the man or group of men who attempt to trifle with this bird."

    "Buy your stuff from us, or ELSE!" ???? Or else what? Mamma won't cook for you? You'll be henpecked to death? What?

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  7. Ă˜bama/GE=Cheney/Halliburton
    http://clarionadvisory.com/?p=11128

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  8. Oy.
    "We told you, and we told you, but Noooooo! You said we were racists!"

    WV: ellobys. I'm pretty sure that's "Hell's lobbys" with a Cockney accent.

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  9. Not sure if any heard it, but that sound was me slapping my forhead.

    w.v. extion what might be in our future with decisions like this one.

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  10. I suport the NRA.... Wait which one are we suporting now?

    :-)
    Josh

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  11. I'm so confused.

    Weren't we regaled, over and over, with stories of how ZOMG teh ebil Bush administration had *OIL COMPANY EXECS* sit in on the Energy Task Force?

    Wasn't it *BAD* when the administration had private industry even tangentially connected to government policy?

    Now it's good?

    Or have we always been at war with Eurasia?

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  12. Fox, henhouse. Henhouse, fox.

    Now that the introductions are taken care of, I'm trusting you to get egg and meat production back up. Here, wipe your chin. You've got drool all over everything.

    If you all will excuse me, I'll be at the house stocking up on canned food and shotguns. TTFN!

    And interestingly enough, I heard that exact same Twain quote on Dan Carlin's podcast this morning.

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  13. "Paging Mr. Tugwell. Mr Rex Tugwell, please pick up the white courtesy phone."

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  14. Immelt will do for the rest of the country what he has done for GE; accelerate job loss
    "GE finished 2009 with 18,000 fewer US workers than it had at the end of 2008, and US headcount is down 31,000 since Immelt's first full year in 2002. During his tenure, GE workers based in the US as a percentage of total employees has fallen to 44% from 52%"
    http://www.zerohedge.com/
    ...he'll just get to do it on a grander scale...

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  15. "We bring good things to life."

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  16. Our Blue Eagle is holding a gear and some lightning because the German version already had the crooked spider.
    But is it Blue Eagle or Blue Falcon?

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  17. Something I was reminded of by Boatguy's two excellent comments (I think he takes the trophy tonight).

    For those who haven't read Amity Shlaes great book "The Forgotten Man", we were in far worse shape in 1937, after 5 years of socialism in the White House, than we were in 1932, when the market had shed all it's make believe profits, was again based in reality, and was digging out.

    I've read that 3 dollars out of 4 were wasted on Roosevelt's "rebuilding of America", and it agrees with what
    my father told me it was like, working as a teenager in the Civilian Conservation Corps.

    His comment was "It gave a lot of loafers a shovel to lean on rather than a lamppost".

    The standard joke about government workers during the 30's was: "Why does it take four CCC people to push one lawnmower?"

    Answer: "Here's the mower, there's the outhouse". "One coming, one going, one s(h)itting, one mowing".

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  18. Even during the latter days of Welch's tenure, if memory serves, it was sort of a dirty secret that most of GE's performance was driven by GE Capital. There's a message in there somewheres....

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  19. My ignorance was tempered by that Blue Eagle link.
    I guess I can never, ever root for the Philly Eagles to win a game, even if it's against Oakland or Baltimore.

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  20. Ed Foster-

    Some thing to rember also is we had a strong manufacturing bass back then to help us rebuild during and after WWII and the bad policies stoped after the war.

    We don't have that base this time.

    :-(
    Josh

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  21. "my father told me it was like, working as a teenager in the Civilian Conservation Corps.

    His comment was "It gave a lot of loafers a shovel to lean on rather than a lamppost".

    The standard joke about government workers during the 30's was: "Why does it take four CCC people to push one lawnmower?""


    Funny you should mention that. There's still the "Youth Conservation Corps". Back when I worked with the NPS, we'd hire about a dozen teenage sh**heads for the summer, who would get paid to do nothing, tear up all of our equipment (they could break a hammer without much trouble, I don't know how we were able to piece together our fourwheelers, mule, golf carts, vans, and tractor after they were done), get praised by the bosses for "doing such a good job", allowed to sleep during their "work"day, and they'd get cash bonuses, ice cream parties, pizza parties, cookouts, etc.

    Meanwhile, very low level student temp workers (college level) like me and the other low GS level permanent employees would get yelled at for actually doing our jobs (but we weren't "team players" an we didn't work as "hard" as the YCC according to the bosses)...we were basically constantly told we weren't worth sh**.

    I got fed up enough with stupid crap like that and left fed .gov employment, and I hope I never have to return...

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