DOES AMERICA HAVE OLIGARCHS?

“Russian oligarchs” have been in the news since Putin started his war, and none of the stories about them have been positive. They are portrayed as fellow criminals with the criminal who has stolen Russia, men (they’re all men) with no conscience about how they make their money, no worries about their effect on Russia (or anywhere else they decide to roost, like London). Their influence is largely seen as ultimately malign, regardless of anything else they may say or do.

Does America have “oligarchs,” and if we do, are they good or bad?

In America, the term “oligarch” isn’t used to describe the super-rich. “Billionaires,” “Multi-billionaires,” “The One Percent,” those terms get used, but not “Oligarchs.”

We don’t like to call them oligarchs do we? Oligarchs are by our definition bad, and thus if we have oligarchs, it would say something bad about the American system.

First, let’s define our terms. A quick internet search turns up this definition of an oligarch as “a very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence.”

That fits.

Think it doesn’t?

In Oregon, redistricting led to a new congressional district that stretches along western Oregon from Portland to Salem. It’s seen as an obvious pickup for Democrats. Several long-time Democratic activists, people with public records of their work and concern for the issues in the district, decided to run for the seat in the June primary.

Guess who the leader is? He’s a guy who was never known as a Democrat before he announced his candidacy. He’s never held any public office, or run for one before. He has no public record. Last week, Nancy Pelosi endorsed his candidacy and the PAC she controls made a major investment in his campaign.

How did this happen? This candidate who has never been a candidate before is supported by Sam Bankman Friedman, known to his fellow SillyCon Valley One Percenters as “SBF.” He made his billions in “Crypto,” which to me is ten steps down from a 1920s Al Capone-style bootlegger or a Mexican heroin and cocaine cartel for promoting “social good.” He’s a believer in “effective altruism.” That means he wants “the biggest bang for his buck” in promoting Good Things. In the particular situation here, SBF’s “chosen guy” is interested in being ready for the next pandemic; he wrote a paper on the subject in 2021 that got picked up by the Biden Administration, with part of it ending up adopted as policy.

So, not bad. But how did he get noticed by SBF to begin with? Would the fact his wife was an employee of the Effective Altruism Foundation, of which SBF is one of the funders, have anything to do with it, or was that mere coincidence?

So far, the guy has gone from being “Who?” at the outset to now the leading candidate in the polls, because of the money his campaign could spend from the donation made by SBF and then the other donations that came his way once it became known among the Progressive Democratic Money Sources that he was “SBF’s guy”, which allowed him to create an effective GOTV organization and run lots of commercials. And then his leading status got him noticed by Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats in D.C. who are terrified by the prospect of being wiped out in November, with the result he was “annointed” for the position.

Look, everything I have read about this guy says he’s not a bad person. But he also has zero, zip, nada experience in politics as the game is played, and is completely the creation of the “political consultants” who have flocked around him like horseflies to horseshit, who run the show. (You really should go and get hold of “The Candidate,” starring Robert Redford as “not-John V. Tunney” who defeats an incumbent Republican senator who isn’t George Murphy as a newcomer to politics who with the help of consultants wins and whose last line in the movie is “What do I do now?”)

Also, the other candidates, who do know how politics works and are not the creation of consultants and billionaires, support the same policy ideas this guy has publicly endorsed.

What might be really different between they and he is the answer to the question, whose phone calls will he take? And what besides pandemic policy might those phone calls be about? What might be his policy on regulation of the “wild west” of Crypto? Or the regulation of Big Tech and the rest of SillyCon Valley?

Nobody in the mee-dee-ya has asked him what his answers to the above might be. Those issues haven’t been mentioned, he hasn’t put them on his website, they are non-issues for all the political smartasses of today’s “political reporters.”

Somehow, I suspect SBF and his fellow contributors do know the answers to those questions.

Once he's elected, and one of the well-paid consultants becomes his Chief of Staff to answer his Redford Question At The End Of The Movie, "What do I do now?", whose phone calls do you think he's going to take? Would he be very likely to ignore a call from the guy whose support put him where he is?

Remember, Sam Bankman Friedman is - according to everything I read from Teddy Schlieffer at Puck, who does know these people - one of the Progressive Good Guys; he’s an effective altruist, dammit! Like Joseph P. Kennedy the Elder, having made his money through stock manipulation, being hired by FDR as the chairman of the then-new SEC to write the two laws that were designed to keep sharks like Joseph P. Kennedy under control, if SBF’s candidate in Oregon wins, that will make him a Serious Player in the Democratic universe. He will be Listened To when it comes to the question of regulating Crypto, the way Kennedy was Listened To when it came to controlling his fellow stock swindlers.

“A very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence.”

But SBF is not an Oligarch because America doesn’t have any of those.

I’m a fan of the show “Billions.” One of the reasons I decided to watch it in the beginning, and the reason why I continue to do so, is because Andrew Ross Sorkin is one of the three show creators. Who is Andrew Ross Sorkin, you ask? The lead paragraph of his Wikipedia page says,

“Andrew Ross Sorkin is an American journalist and author. He is a financial columnist for The New York Times and a co-anchor of CNBC's Squawk Box. He is also the founder and editor of DealBook, a financial news service published by The New York Times. He wrote the bestselling book Too Big to Fail...”

Sorkin’s known as an expert on the topic of contemporary Wall Street. Which means there’s a reason why he is the co-creator who is always there for the brainstorming sessions in the show’s Writer’s Room. He’s the guy who knows the people, who knows the story.

When the show first began, the “bad guy” was Bobby Axelrod, the billionaire who ran Axe Capital. Being played by Damian Lewis, who is as likeable as a likeable actor gets, “Axe” was a “lovable rogue.” It was easy for a viewer to dislike what he did, but to be very interested in seeing how he got away with it. Eventually, though, Bobby Axelrod became a repetitive One-Note-Charlie, and Lewis - being no dummy - got Axe exiled to Switzerland after an amazing getaway, and himself written out of the show.

The reboot is far better.

Mike Prince, played by the very good Corey Stoll, is no “lovable rogue.” He is a Certified Good Guy. It’s almost surprising they didn’t make him one of the original organizers of the Effective Altruism Foundation, because “effective altruism” is what Mike Prince is all about. Give him a chance, listen to his advice, take his guidance, and he will guarantee to make your life amazing.

But if you don’t do all that, watch out. Corey Stoll is perfect for “letting the darkness float to the surface” with a glance or a gesture. And every time someone takes away his chance, doesn’t listen to his advice, fails to take his guidance, there’s a quick cut to Mike, and you see it all right there in an instant.

Mike Prince only wants to do Amazing Good Things. Bring the Olympics to New York City. Create “Mike Money” to implement the idea of a Guaranteed Basic Income for everyone and solve poverty.

It was so smart of the writers to come up with the story line of the New York City Olympics. Anyone with half a brain knows the idea is crazy with a Capital C. Watching Mike Prince go after doing it, how he sold it to the public as a wonderful idea, how he corruptly roped in the necessary political support by showing those he needed how they would look like Good Guys for joining in - a sure sell with politicians - was perfect. And how in the process it would redound to his benefit such that he could decide to run for President was more than perfect.

If they’d done the story of Sam Bankman Friedman financing an obscure congressional candidate in Oregon, some political junkie like me would have been interested. Along with the other ten watchers not bored silly.

But Olympics in New York City, and how that would destroy things in the name of creating Good Things and redound to the election of Mike Prince as the Good Guy In Office, THAT was something everybody could find interesting, and easy to understand.

Altruistic Good Guys In Office. There’s a plotline we’ve seen before.

I saw it here in the City of Lost Angles back in the 90s when Richard Riordan, then One Of The Richest Businessmen in The City, ran for mayor on a platform of “Look what I built for me - I can do that for you!” and won in 1993. And was re-elected in 1997. He was going to fix things so the 1992 Rodney King Riots would never happen again. And they haven’t.

Riordan was an Effective Altruist before anyone thought of the term. He reformed the LAPD. He brought in Celebrity Police Chief Bill Bratton to make sure all became Very Good.

Except, the LAPD still has officers who shoot harmless crazy homeless people in 2022. Because there are still homeless people, most of whom are crazy, who are homeless because they’re the people who have been the victims of the 45-year old well-meaning liberal idea that the mentally ill shouldn’t be institutionalized in State Mental Hospitals. They should be cared for in the community, at Community Mental Health Centers. Governor Sainted Ray Gun heard “no more state hospitals” and got behind the idea of shutting them down. And every other governor since hasn’t wanted to raise the budget to create the Community Mental Health Centers, especially since the people who vote them into office say “Not In My Back Yard!” to the idea. So instead, they’d rather have the homeless crazy people urinating in their back yards. Which they do.

Yes, the problem existed before Riordan came along, but for all his rhetoric, nothing was done.

And now everyone here can’t wait to see the backside of Eric Garcetti, the current mayor, who didn’t solve the even-worse homeless crisis that Riordan didn’t solve.

And wouldn’t you know it, another Effective Altruist is running for mayor, telling us all that his experience Getting Rich is the perfect experience to Solve All Our Problems. Rick Caruso, who in my mind has done more than any other single individual in the 41 years I have lived here to Make The City Worse with his shopping malls that destroyed interesting neighborhoods, is spending like the proverbial drunken sailor. I have personally probably created a whole new paper recycling company from all the mailers from him that I take out of the mailbox and drop in the blue recycling bin ten feet away.

I would vote for the reincarnation of Sam Yorty before I would vote for Rick Caruso.

Every single thing Caruso talks about as something he has done to make things good for people has also, at the same time, amazingly made Rick Caruso rich(er). The same way having an Oregon congressman who takes his calls, and a Democratic Establishment that pays attention to him, will increase the wealth while increasing the political power of Sam Bankman Friedman.

The best political education I ever received was working in Bob Mendelsohn’s primary campaign for the Democratic nomination as State Controller back in 1974. I’ve written about that earlier, as the time I met Nancy Pelosi and was the beneficiary of her master class in Who Was Who And Why They Were There at one of our fundraisers. Most of our time in that campaign was spent dealing with the San Francisco Ruling Class, the businessmen and their families who owned things like Levi Strauss, the Fairmount Hotel and other places. They weren’t rich like today’s rich are rich, but their power covered the city, and the things they wanted to talk about were the things the politicians wanted to listen to, and the things they wanted done appeared on the policy lists of successful campaigns. That hasn’t changed.

When I came to Hollywood, I met people who were well off, several of whom later became among the first billionaires in America. When I heard they had achieved that goal, I was never surprised. They were always going to do something like that. Whether they needed the money or not. And even before they became billionaires, they were not people you knowingly crossed.

Like Mike Prince, if you wanted to give him (they are always “him”) a chance, listen to his advice, take his guidance, will guarantee to make your life amazing.

And if you didn’t....

Corey Stoll’s face wasn’t the first place I ever saw “the look.”

Whether they want to be Mike Prince or Bobby Axelrod, in the end they’re the same guy. Oligarchs. “A very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence.”

And whatever they do, for whatever reason they do it, none of it will “make your life amazing.”

Effective Altruist or Outlaw Rogue, they’re all about power. They really are Orson Welles standing in the ferris wheel at the top of its cycle, looking down at the people on the ground, and not caring whether “one of the dots” stops moving.

And for the women formerly married to Jeff Bezos or Steve Jobs, now using their billions to do Wonderful Things, those billions were created the same way all the others were.

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