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Saturday, June 03, 2017
Buying out the Right
If you read the piece I linked to above, you will probably find it infuriating, just as I did. For the benefit of profits for oil and coal, and jobs for miners, we are getting a completely wrong headed policy. Yet it seems pretty evident that Democrats are getting killed at the ballot box, an illustration once again that a concentrated economic interest can defeat a broad political interest.
So, as I did a fantasy island daydream in my last post, here is another one of those. What if billionaires with a more left leaning orientation - Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet, George Soros, and maybe a few others whose names don't occur to me now, and they put together a package to buy out Koch Industries and the big coal companies, with the intention of winding down their activities after acquisition?
And what if the big infrastructure plan that we definitely need has disproportionate spending in coal mining states so that it offers jobs other than mining jobs for the citizens and, in addition, their are cash payments to these states out of general tax revenues to boost employment in other ways.
Could this work?
Many Democrats might find "bribes" of this sort offensive. I can understand that, but right now the Democrats are not holding winning cards. Fighting for a losing cause may make sense in some instances. But climate change doesn't seem to fit that. There is an urgency to do something about it - now. Certainly, the suggestion to buy them out would be more expeditious.
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