THE ROMNEY BUZZ: LIKEABILITY OR SUBSTANCE? THE ANSWER: NEITHER

The morning after Romney’s grab for likability the media was parsing whether this had been accomplished. (Not much about the deplorable paucity of substance!) And the Republican message is: can’t we do better, let’s try another approach.

So, again, where‘s the beef?

Romney still “believes” the “free” market will correct all the wrongs – because the freer the market the better the climate for sociopathic greed to culture personal net worth. This is one thing we know about the chameleon. No etch a sketch here! And no one (almost no one) points out whenever Obama’s handling of the economy is discussed that a large part of “our” – the people’s Congress has voted in lockstep against the best interests of the people to make Obama appear inept to get rid of him. Keep in mind that no-chin Mitch told his fellow countrymen that he would work tirelessly to make Obama a one termer shortly after his election. (I heard as a child that a weak chin indicates weak character.)

So, how can any president fix an economy when a majority of the house controlled by Republicans (in the majority) voted against another shot of Gov spending to stimulate the economy to create jobs; as well as voted against eliminating billions of subsidies to big oil; and voted against raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans to provide additional government revenue?All would help fund a recovery as well as reduce deficits. Is anybody listening to the sounds of the echoes coming from this public charade?

Matt Taibbi, of Rolling Stone, just wrote about the fact of Romney’s track record of Narcissistic Socipathic Greed. How he took over companies, loaded them up with debt, and then removed hundreds of millions as a dividend, paid himself/Bain multimillion dollar bonuses and left the companies drowning in debt and unsupportable interest payments. Of course, this historical account is not new, but stunning in the facts illuminated in only five pages.

Mr. Swiss Offshore (protected from US scrutiny) Accounts had some nice family moments on film. Clearly his family appreciates him, and it seems the Mormon Church that has received so much of the money he acquired shutting down the lives of workers at the companies he ran into the ground also regards him with great favor.

But what about all the people and towns suffering in the wake of Bain led by Romney, who has been described by Bain partners as a control freak? An individual who does not care about how their actions adversely affect society or individuals within the society is termed: a narcissistic sociopath. Some people like this are mass murderers, and some are the kind of people on Wall Street who only care about how much money they can make without regard for anything else or anyone.

So where are we going in this election year?

Our financial underpinnings are as flimsy as ever – with $700 trillion derivatives circling overhead like a financial plague waiting to detonate. Our banks are too big and still get almost free Fed Funds to play with for their own “proprietary” purposes. Regulators remain in a coma with no resolve to enforce regulations which make the activities of their former partners, colleagues and still good friends unlawful, or at least against the Doctrine of Fair Play in the rules of FINRA.

Our ability to make sense of oligopolistic health insurance carriers has not been addressed by Congress or properly and objectively explained by our media, because propaganda has replaced reason and critical thought – and lies combined with low information leads to a paucity of understanding. So a large part of our fellow Americans have swallowed the ruses promoted by the self interested greed of the CEOs running the health carriers.

The FALLACY OF PARSING LIKABILITY has replaced the logic of examining the realities of what a narcissistic sociopathically greedy president could do to further displace millions of Americans from the ability to survive and come out of this depression. And the fallacy of parsing the so-called intelligence of a rigidly religious and zealous denier of women’s rights who would be the vice president is also not the proper role of the Fourth Estate charged with the responsibility of objectively creating informed public opinion.
And for the Press to fulfill its responsibility to be part of the checks and balances in our Democracy, it is necessary that the Press point out and expose all the lies!

Whenever one side lies the Press seems to diminish the fact of the lies by commenting on all the negative ads or all the negativity, or all the partisanship. So is the truth about a lie a negative response or an objective response to create an informed public? When the Republicans continue to portray $700 Billion coming out of Medicare as negative – without explaining the fact that a more appropriate allocation of Medicare dollars and decreasing costs resulted in savings to be put to better use to help more people have health insurance – where is the Press jumping on the breach of the truth to explain the real facts to eliminate public confusion? Where is the Press to explain at the point of the lie – there is no reduction in benefits for covered individuals!

The Obama administration must do a better job of explaining what it has tried to do to fix the economy. How about just a list of bullet points to refute the lies, and alongside the bullet the negative votes of the Republicans (and some Democrats, because Democrats never vote in lockstep). Why not admit what has not worked and how the present administration has learned from its mistakes? And the President must take a stand against the proliferation of sociopathic greed to protect the public from what is still happening – like making markets to bet on the direction of derivatives without any foundational value that cannot be explained – except it is common sense to understand that egregious leverage too complex to explain is too risky to ever control.

Obama must stop the sociopathic greed and anti-social amoral behavior underlying toxic financial innovation. (Think Glass-Steagall and the 1956 Bank Holding Company Act!)

Our Republic is being lied to over and over again by the greediest members of our society and the lies are not being properly identified. Why doesn’t Congress pass a law that if anyone in Congress lies to the public in any way, even an ad, it is perjury?
Why do not more members of the Fourth Estate do what they are supposed to do – which does not mean kissing the asses of the liars they interview when they provide them a platform to argue the world is flat. There is a reason HBO’s “The Newsroom” has resonated with so many viewers, and the media needs to relearn its obligation to protect the truth.

So let’s stop parsing Romney’s likeability and reason from his very clear track record of not caring about whether anyone he has ever employed has a job or the ability to feed their family. And let’s examine Ryan’s budget and how it does not balance anything for decades, but does cut all social nets of support, and further relate his rigidly zealot view of allowing religion to interfere with individual liberty.

So how hypocritical is it to want the government in your bedroom and at the same time want it to be smaller and less intrusive? At least Ryan is clear about his delusions and judgmental condemnations of all who do not agree with his Pre Dark Age posture toward life.

Romney and Ryan both agree and support supply side economics based on the job creator/free market myth – which is the most alarming position they both hold. Consider the Chicago School which, in the late 70s and 80s, promoted these ruses for the rich to get richer has now denounced supply side as absolutely wrong. Consider: there is NO EVIDENCE that ever supported this “theory” ruse – no evidence that cutting taxes and government spending (actually what happened is that taxes were cut and spending increased which was partly responsible for this depression) ever created one job!
Romney is going to create jobs? Never his sincere concern, because he promotes and espouses the lie that the market will correct this.

Romney’s real plan is to let the destruction of jobs and parts of the economy create the reconstruction (?) while he hoards the cash he extracted from so many companies (that Bain tanked which cancelled so many jobs) in offshore accounts without disclosure. No tax returns equals no character, because it may be assumed that secrete tax avoidance offshore equates with tax evasion unless a man who would be president of the land of the free provides the disclosure necessary to prove his honesty.

An honest man has nothing to hide.

Henry Schoenberger is the author of the new book – How We Got Swindled by Wall Street Godfathers, Greed & financial Darwinism ~ The 30-Year War Against the American Dream, with a foreword by David Satterfield, former business editor of the Miami Herald and 2 times Pulitzer Prize-winner.