'The Kronies' Will Make You Laugh in Despair about the State of American Capitalism
It's funny because it's true. Wait ... that's awful, actually.
All hail Chimera Incorporated! What, you think that corporation name sounds sinister? What kind of American are you, anyway? No, Chimera Incorporated is bringing us "The Kronies," the awesome super-powered team that keeps this country big and strong through the tools of crony capitalism. Save us from those selfish entrepreneurs who want the unpredictable "market" to decide who the winners are. Why should the market get to decide when we've got all this influence?
Here's an introduction to The Kronies:
I defy you to find a better way to reach Gen Xers who distrust the government (by which I mean, "Gen Xers") than a parody of terrible Saturday morning cartoons from 30 years ago. The site for the Kronies is here, featuring descriptions of their "heroes" and their abilities to direct government spending their way with powers like mandates and boondoggles. Right now they represent the ethanol industry, big banks, big labor, and the military-industrial complex, led by "Big G," the manifestation of the bipartisan nature (his costume is equally split between red and blue) of government crony spending. The site promises a shop coming soon, and we can only hope they follow through.
Glenn Beck and The Blaze tracked down the mastermind of the site, John Papola, CEO of Austin-based production company Emergent Order. Beck interviewed Papola about the bipartisanship nature of crony capitalism and the business culture that makes it so hard to fight. In short, the more powerful the government, the greater the incentive for crony capitalism.
"I really believe that it's fundamentally the unique nature of government as a monopoly that gives rise to these things," he told Beck. "Whether you're General Motors or General Electric or — you name the big corporation — and you have a fiduciary duty to go after the maximum profit, and you have the opportunity to use legislation to help do that or help keep your competitors at bay, you're gonna do it. The incentives are so perverse that it's not even a matter of morality after a certain point, because if your competitors are doing it, are you going to fire your people to be the nice guy, because you let the other guy take the subsidies and rig the rules against you?"
I'm crossing my fingers for a video game in the future. As it's a licensed intellectual property, it must be a very, very bad video game that costs too much, as is typically the case.