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Who has ever heard Blankfein speak in public until today? We can all find out who 'captains of industry' are in this country, but they are incredibly well protected, controlled, and as we saw today -- capable of ducking all questions until finally a short senate hearing where years of questioning and oversight into their practices are crammed into a couple of hours. Good for the nightly news, but what about tomorrow?
Unless Blankfein is willing to sit down with a serious journalist/critic and speak honestly no one should believe him. Everything they say is rehearsed, and no one knows how these people talk in real life. Yet hearing/reading some of the popular coverage you would think that he has absolutely no responsibility beyond showing up to a hearing and delivering canned answers.
If they can't be in front of a camera unprepared then what makes these people so special again?
Why can't these people stand up to same scrutiny Lindsay Lohan does? Sometimes I wonder if American Celebrity isnt just the most convenient sheild for politics and economics sometimes. Distract, look over there, something new...dont look at the numbers.
I think any corporation that knows that a Senate / House hearing is the worst public appearance they can ever face is quite comfortable with that fact. What I heard today was not a failure of congress but the success of a finely tuned "total spectrum dominance' of corporate PR machines capable of hiding anyone who pays the right price and controlling their public image.
This is american politics at its clearest. There is the 'government,' relatively open (not enough), process oriented, and competitive with a party of 'something' vs. 'nothing'
Then there are corporations, whose transparency is based on the honesty of their accountants, given a determinist and spiritual blessing by the religious to make as much money as possible, and capable of blaming the 'government' for going after them, while they all know how intense their competition is amongst their peers.
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