BFFs

Twenty CEOs of major corporations met with President Obama for a love fest yesterday. It’s yet another example of Lenin’s claim that capitalists would gladly sell the rope with which they’d ultimately be hanged.

In attendance were some of Obama’s biggest corporate boosters, many of whom are totally on board with cap and trade:

Also notable is the fact that many of the corporations represented – General Electric (GE), Duke Energy, NextEra Energy, Dow Chemical and PepsiCo – are current members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP).

USCAP is a lobbying coalition of businesses and environmental groups that lobby heavily for energy legislation like cap and trade. USCAP, in fact, takes credit for getting the recent Waxman-Markey bill passed in the House last year.

Honeywell CEO and big-government fifth-columnist David Cote had this to say:

“Government is the enabler of business…Government and business need to work together.”

Exactly, Dave. The government needs corporate lackeys to help in the implementation of statist central planning; how wonderful that people like you are willing to step up to the plate to improve the optics, to give the “capitalist” imprimatur to socialism and junk-science – which, strangely, you failed to point out are directly benefiting your company:

What Cote did not mention is that his company has already been working closely with the Obama Administration, and was a major beneficiary of the Recovery Act — as were many of the other companies represented. According to Recovery.gov, Honeywell received over $44 million in grants from the Department of Energy (DOE) for renewable energy initiatives.

Not all, certainly, but far too many companies are perfectly willing to lock in (what they assume will be) stable, predictable returns on investment, even at the cost of undermining the American tradition of individual freedom, with all the messy risk and unpredictability that liberty entails. Large organizations – whether government or private sector – tend toward bureaucratization, and bureaucracy is to creativity as the garrote is to the neck bone. Creativity, imagination and drive; these are the great invisible line items in the capital section of the balance sheet, and without them the only thing you have is a nominal private-sector organization that will take the path of least resistance toward survival by puckering its lips and homing in on the federal udder. If the organization has to direct its financial investment and R&D toward the creation of an enormous “green” energy infrastructure, the need for which is based on a scientifically spurious, but politically correct, government imperative, then so be it. Why spend all the time and effort and money in a truly competitive environment to meet genuine market demand for products and services actually desired by the public –it’s all so risky! - when you can take advantage of the government's ability to create demand overnight through executive and congressional mandates. Plus you can get all those juicy subsidies, to boot!

The great threat comes not only from expansionist government, but also from those in what is ostensibly known as the private sector who are fetched by the siren song of influence, power and special treatment. Competitive advantage that is not based on real production efficiencies or outstanding customer service or quality products and services that people want, but on special pleading and political (and monetary) payoffs to the best-connected lobbyists and congressmen is bad news for the consumer, bad news for good government and bad news for democracy. Bear that in mind the next time you consider buying something from Honeywell or GE (or a bottle of Pepsi, for cryin’ out loud! Glad I switched to Mexican Coca-Cola).