News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Aug. 24, 2018: I wish I had a Billion $$$$$.
Why?
So I could buy EVERY American a copy of this new book:
WINNERS TAKE ALL by Anand Giridharadas.
As of 1 PM EST today, according to the U.S. Census Clock online …
The population of the US is 328,420,145. And of course, it will be more by the time you read this week’s episode. IF I bought 328 Million + copies of this book on Amazon at $22.50 each, it would cost me over $7 Billion Dollars. So forget that. Even if I got a very deep discount, $1 Billion Dollars would not be enough.
So I will tell ALL 328,420,145 + Americans about this book and I hope convince ALL of you to buy a copy. By the way, it won’t be published and available for another few days – not until August 28th but it is worth the wait!
BUT WHY should everyone read WINNERS TAKE ALL?
Because it can change the world. Certainly America, which will in effect change the entire world. Because Anand Giridharadas tells THE TRUTH!
By logical extension, this is my most important episode EVER!
YES, this book is that important. This episode will tell you why.
Let me lead into this MOST important episode EVER …
By referencing what is happening this week in Washington and the further revelations of The Trump Administration as a Criminal Enterprise. It is no longer about Russian “collusion,” which there probably never was.
It is now evolving into the very nature of how Donald Trump does “business” and always has, and how he got so very rich and became President.
What WINNERS TAKE ALL informs us, even if we should all already know it but seem to forget or ignore, is that corruption and the abuse of power is NOT a Trump problem. It is far more pervasive, widespread and built right into the fabric of our society and it is why most of us are VICTIMS.
Even more to the point and the core of this story, is the extent we get conned into believing that if we get rid of Trump, the problem is solved. NO WAY!
Allow me to make a comparison to yes Ancient Rome. Prosperous Ancient Rome at the height of its power and wealth. When Rome’s version of the markets was experiencing its greatest bull market ever and so many were making more money than they ever had before. The Elites, not most Romans.
It was the time of that classic PBS series that was wildly popular way back in 1976 but still fondly remembered by many. I CLAUDIUS, which was a very graphic and entertaining series about the cut throat behavior of the ruling elites that was hidden away from most Romans back in Ancient Rome. There were two main factions battling it out for supremacy. To overly simplify, which is all that is required, I will call them the Claudians and the anti-Claudians. All the other Romans and non-Romans throughout the Empire call them the slaves if you wish. That is accurate enough. They were simply the VICTIMS.
Now let’s fast forward just about exactly 2000 years to today. And change Rome to Washington, DC, the capital of the Empire. What has changed???
Nothing much as Anand Giridharadas brilliantly details in his new book WINNERS TAKE ALL without referencing Ancient Rome.
Today we have OUR (sic) Two Warring Elites – the Republican Elites led by Trump, Pence, Bush, McConnell, Ryan, Rubio, Romney and a host of Others. Opposing them the Democratic Elites led by The Clintons, The Obamas, Schumer, Pelosi, Cuomo, de Blasio and a host of Others.
Of course, today the Elites have something there was no real equivalent for in Ancient Rome unless you want to factor in the brutal spectacles in the Coliseum. Today each side has powerful propaganda machines most (sic) represented by Fox News for the Republicans and CNN for the Democrats
Just like those Ancient Romans did OUR Elites tell us over and over they are working for us when they are just working for themselves while working hard to make us believe otherwise as WINNERS TAKE ALL details.
So now that I have set the stage and provided all my readers FREE access to this Circus let’s get to the book itself and why you must buy it for yourself assuming I don’t come up with $7 Billion Dollars anytime soon. Assume it.
What better then to turn to my principal media partner The New York Times and their review of WINNERS TAKE ALL in last Sunday’s Times even more that this all-important book’s author Anand Giridharadas is a former columnist and correspondent for The New York Times.
First of all, it is time I gave you the full title of his new book …..
“WINNERS TAKE ALL: The Elites Charade Of Changing The World.”
Now to The Times book review of WINNERS TAKE ALL …..
“First came the books describing just how much worse economic inequality had become over the past 20 years, with all the dramatic political implications now impossible to ignore. Then there were the tomes about globalization (including my own, I admit), detailing the West’s unfettered pursuit of neoliberal policies that abetted all this unfairness.”
ARE YOU READY for more …
“Well, prepare for a new genre: books gently and politely skewering the corporate titans who claim to be solving such problems. It’s an elite that, rather than pushing for systemic change, only reinforces our lopsided economic reality — all while hobnobbing on the conference circuit and trafficking in platitudes.”
“Anand Giridharadas, a former columnist for The Times, spoke about this phenomenon at an Aspen Institute conference in 2015, and he takes his ideas further in his entertaining and gripping new book, “Winners Take All.”
“As the Democratic Party struggles to figure out its future and global demagogy thrives, it’s worth considering where we went wrong and how best to save the world from the dangerous turn it has taken. It’s now very clear that globalization, technology and market liberalization did not bring their promised benefits — at least not for the vast majority of Americans and those in advanced countries around the world.”
NOW let’s get down to it!
“For those at the helm, the philanthropic plutocrats and aspiring “change agents” who believe they are helping but are actually making things worse, it’s time for a reckoning with their role in this spiraling dilemma.”
WHY most of us are nothing but .. VICTIMS!
“In a series of chapters centered on different individuals who are part of this rarefied class, Giridharadas exposes the rationalizations of the 0.001 percent who actually believe they are making the world a better place. The Sacklers helped create the opioid crisis but give money to important causes. The chief executive of Cinnabon thinks that being transparent about the fat and sugar she peddles offsets the harm her company creates. It’s a land of PowerPoint presentations and cuddly good intentions.”
TIME to name names!
“Giridharadas calls this prevailing ethos “MarketWorld,” made up of people who want “to do well and do good.” He beautifully catches the language of Aspen, Davos and the recently extant Clinton Global Initiative, which will doubtless reappear in the newly born Bloomberg initiative.”
That’s right The Clintons, Bloomberg and the others ……
“It’s a world of feel-good clichés like “win-win” and “make a difference.” The rote conversations of this crowd were on display at the Public Theater, in the beginning of the second act of the Bruce Norris play “The Low Road.”
“As Giridharadas describes the ethos of MarketWorld, it’s made up of people like former President Bill Clinton who saw the anger bubbling up but proved unable to “call out elites for their sins: or call for power’s redistribution and fundamental systemic change; or suggest that plutocrats might have to surrender precious things for others to have a shot of transcending indecency.”
TELL us more …
Like the dieter who would rather do anything to lose weight than actually eat less, this business elite would save the world through social impact investing, entrepreneurship, sustainable capitalism, philanthro-capitalism, artificial intelligence, market-driven solutions. They would fund a million of these buzzwordy programs rather than fundamentally question the rules of the game — or even alter their own behavior to reduce the harm of the existing distorted, inefficient and unfair rules.”
“Doing the right thing — and moving away from their win-win mentality — would involve real sacrifice; instead, it’s easier to focus on their pet projects and initiatives. As Giridharadas puts it, people wanted to do “virtuous side projects instead of doing their day jobs more honorably.”
REPEAT that please …
“As Giridharadas puts it, people wanted to do “virtuous side projects instead of doing their day jobs more honorably.”
HERE comes the scary part for The Elites …
“In order to really have an economy with the greatest opportunity for all, the kind of economy they seem to champion, the MarketWorlders would have to pay high levels of corporate and personal income tax, offer decent wages to their workers, allow unions, fund public schools (instead of pet charter projects) and support some form of single payer health care and campaign finance reform. One simply can’t arrive at a more economically equal reality when the rungs of the ladder are so far apart.”
ENCORE …..
“In order to really have an economy with the greatest opportunity for all, the kind of economy they seem to champion, the MarketWorlders would have to pay high levels of corporate and personal income tax, offer decent wages to their workers, allow unions, fund public schools (instead of pet charter projects) and support some form of single payer health care and campaign finance reform. One simply can’t arrive at a more economically equal reality when the rungs of the ladder are so far apart.”
WHEN do you think this will happen? Let me tell you… NEVER!
Back to the review and DAVOS, the Biggest BS Show of all!
“At Davos and the other international conclaves where the muckety-mucks celebrate the new economic world they have helped create, which has rewarded them so amply, corporate leaders move seamlessly from sessions discussing the risks of climate change, growing inequality and financial instability, to dinners at which they praise tax cuts for billionaires and corporations and applaud proposals for deregulation.”
DAVOS, DAVOS, DAVOS!
“They conveniently don’t mention the increases in taxes on a majority of those in the middle, the Republican moves to eliminate health insurance for some 13 million in a country where life expectancy is already in decline, the increase in pollution, the risk of another financial crisis, the ever increasing evidence of moral turpitude — whether it’s Wells Fargo cheating its customers or Volkswagen cheating on its emission tests. Cognitive dissonance is intrinsic to MarketWorld.”
Here is what we get NOTHING at all …
“Giridharadas rightly argues that this misallocation of resources creates a grave opportunity cost. The money and time the MarketWorlders spend fixing the edges of our fraying social order could be used to push for real change. This is especially so in the political battles in which the country is currently engaged, where a majority of the Supreme Court and members of Congress seem hellbent on rewriting the rules of the American economy and political system in ways that will exacerbate economic disparities, increase monopoly power, and decrease access to health care and women’s reproductive rights.”
I am going to skip a few paragraphs of this insightful review and go to the FINAL part but go online and read it all please ….
“Perhaps recognizing the intractability and complexity of the fix we are in, Giridharadas sidesteps prescriptions by giving the book’s last words to a political scientist, Chiara Cordelli. “This right to speak for others,” Cordelli says, “is simply illegitimate when exercised by a powerful citizen.”
“Although a more definitive conclusion would have been welcome, Cordelli does point to the real lesson of the book: Democracy and high levels of inequality of the kind that have come to characterize the United States are simply incompatible.”
“Very rich people will always use money to maintain their political and economic power. But now we have another group: the unwitting enablers. Despite believing they are working for a better world, they are at most chipping away at the margins, making slight course corrections, while the system goes on as it is, uninterrupted. The subtitle of the book says it all: “The Elite Charade of Changing the World.”
AGAIN …. The subtitle of the book says it all: “The Elite Charade of Changing the World.”
SORRY President Trump is NOT the Problem. Trump is just a manifestation of the Problem which is both the Republican and Democratic Elites who control OUR world to their benefit not yours or mine.
TIME to wake up. Begin by reading WINNERS TAKE ALL.
As for Anand Giridharadas, good thing he is not in China; he’d be DEAD.
(This entire series is dedicated in honor of the late Liu Xiaobo)
