If we have "military Keynesianism," sez Willard Inc., why not "crony Keynesianism"? After all, aren't cronies people, just like corporations?

FLASHING BACK TO MY 4TH OF JULY POST, 2010:

So THAT'S why we're in Afghanistan! It's "military Keynesianism"

"This is what the American dream has come to? Your founders warned you about this. Warned you that standing armies and unrestrained banks would cost you your freedom. And the sad thing is that most Americans are ok with it." (Ian Welsh, today -- see below)

"Obama has to stay in Afghanistan because war spending is one of the only reliable forms of stimulus he has. The economy is in bad shape, and it needs that stimulus. Since he can’t get a new large stimulus through Congress that means he MUST keep the Afghan war going if he doesn’t want an economic disaster, which would then lead to an electoral disaster."

-- Ian Welsh, in a recent blogpost,

"Actually, Afghanistan is a war of choice"

"The bottom line is that a lot of consultants are making a lot of money from Mitt Romney with mixed results."

-- an "unaffiliated GOP campaign-finance attorney," speaking anonymously to WaPo's Dan Eggen "in order to be candid"

by Ken

I couldn't help but flash back to my belated discovery of the concept of "military Keynesianism" when I noticed this hilarious story washingtonpost.com this afternoon (presumably destined for tomorrow's paper):

Consultants benefit from Mitt Romney campaign


By Dan Eggen, Monday, February 27, 12:24 PM

Spencer J. Zwick started his career a decade ago as Mitt Romney's 22-year-old personal assistant at the Winter Games in Salt Lake City, then went on to become a senior gubernatorial aide, co-founder of an equity fund with one of Romney's sons and a top fundraiser for Romney's 2008 campaign.

Now Zwick serves as Romney's finance chairman for the 2012 presidential election. But he doesn't actually work for the campaign. Instead, he is paid through a Boston company he created, SJZ Inc., which has taken in nearly $5 million for "fundraising consulting" from Romney so far this election season.

Zwick is among a close-knit and intertwined group of senior Romney advisers who work at firms that have collected millions of dollars in consulting fees from the campaign and, in some cases, from the pro-Romney "super PAC" that is assisting in his run for the White House, according to recent campaign disclosures.

The extent of the campaign's reliance on outside firms is unusual for a major presidential bid, experts say. And records show that most of the firms are staffed by longtime advisers or former employees from Romney's 2008 campaign.

The arrangement not only has benefitted several of those close to Romney, but it also makes it harder to determine how the candidate is spending his donors' money, since salaries and other details about the outside operations are kept under wraps.

Romney campaign officials, who declined to comment on the record, said their use of consultants is no different than that of numerous other candidates, including President Obama.

Most political campaigns use consultants to produce ads, run polling and perform other specialized work. Obama, for example, has a clutch of longtime advisers, such as David Axelrod, who run outside consulting shops that do business for the campaign.

But Romney's use of consultants extends to areas such as fundraising, which is common for congressional races but far less so for major presidential campaigns, according to experts and disclosure reports. Romney has paid $4.6 million to Zwick's firm for fundraising consulting, for example, compared to $75,000 reported by Obama for the same type of expenditure.

"The bottom line is that a lot of consultants are making a lot of money from Mitt Romney with mixed results," said one unaffiliated GOP campaign-finance attorney, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to be candid. . . .

There's lots more, but I think you get the general drift. And couldn't you just bust a gut laughing? I think this is simply high-larious! Whadja expect! That those fat COWs (Cronies of Willard) were going to have to sit on their butts waiting for Willard to make it to the White House to cash in? Why, that would be positively un-American. And anyone doesn't think so is just envious.

How did the Afghanistan adventure illustrate the working principles of military Keynesianism?

Obama has to stay in Afghanistan because war spending is one of the only reliable forms of stimulus he has. The economy is in bad shape, and it needs that stimulus. Since he can’t get a new large stimulus through Congress that means he MUST keep the Afghan war going if he doesn’t want an economic disaster, which would then lead to an electoral disaster.

This is the sad truth of America: the only acceptable form of Keynesian spending is military Keynesianism. Instead of hiring tens of thousands of teachers, building a high speed rail network across the country, refitting every building to be energy efficient and doing a massive solar and wind build-out to reduce dependence on oil, well, the US would rather turn Afghans and Pakistanis into a fine red mist.

That fine red mist is what’s keeping the American economy from going under entirely. And so, even if it’s the wrong thing to do, even if it’s the graveyard of America’s Empire, the war will continue.

And wouldn't you know, as soon as the new generation of austerity-packing deficit hatcheteers had the prospect of serious cuts in military spending thrown at them, they wailed in unison about the terrible hit the economy would take from the loss of all those jobs! These worthless sacks of doody who would have gleefully thrown their grandmas out of work -- well, maybe not their grandmas, but sure as shootin' yours -- in the name of "fiscal prudence," who bray at every opportunity that there ain't no such-a thing as government economic stimulus, 'cause as we all know government can't create jobs, turn out to be die-hard Keynesians, committed to the stimulative value of government spending, as long as it's on cool stuff like a war machine and actual wars.

Already I think we knew that Ian might have wished to expand his statement, "This is the sad truth of America: the only acceptable form of Keynesian spending is military Keynesianism," to encompass all forms of national-security spending, for which "fiscally prudent" right-wingers are always prepared to issue blank checks.

But now, thanks to our future real "CEO president" (not to be confused with the parody version we had before the present occupant), we learn that there's another form of what I learned in high school economics to call "priming the pump": shoving megabucks at your cronies. Just remember that all that campaign loot being shoveled into JRZ Inc., the company set up for the purpose by Willard Inc.'s old P.A. from the glory days of his Salt Lake City Olympics scamming, is available to be spent on jewelry and yachts and foie gras and whatnot, enabling the jewelers and yacht makers and vendors and duck- and goose-liver-stuffers to hire more staff and so on down the trickle chute.

I love it when grass-roots Republicans in primary states tell marauding journalists that they're leaning toward Willard Inc. because of his business background and understanding of how to get the economy going. Yeah, sure -- if you're a lucky COW.


THEN THERE'S MURDOCH-STYLE CRONY KEYNESIANISM,
WHERE THE CRONIES PAY OFF THE GOVERNMENT WHORES

From nytimes.com this afternoon:

Inquiry Leader Says Murdoch Papers Paid Off British Officials

By SARAH LYALL
Published: February 27, 2012

LONDON -- The officer leading a police investigation into Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers said on Monday that reporters and editors at The Sun tabloid had over the years paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for information not only to police officers but also to a "network of corrupted officials" in the military and the government.

The officer, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, said that e-mail records obtained by the police showed that there was a "culture at The Sun of illegal payments" that were authorized "at a very senior level within the newspaper" and involved "frequent and sometimes significant sums of money" paid to public officials in the Health Ministry and the prison service, among other agencies.

The testimony was a sharp new turn in a months-long judicial investigation of the behavior of Murdoch-owned and other newspapers, known as the Leveson inquiry. It detailed financial transactions that showed both the scale and the scope of alleged bribes, the covert nature of their payment and the seniority of newspaper executives accused of involvement. . . .

But of course the U.S. media properties of Master Rupert's News Corp. would never do anything like that here, would they? Probably the company has already investigated just to make sure, just the way the British News Corp. properties did.

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