L. M. Lloyd

I finally got around to watching Michael Moore's anti-capitalist screed "Capitalism: A Love Story," and it left me unbelievably pissed off! Now, before you jump to any conclusions about what I mean, based on the language I use, let me just explain myself, and save you the trouble of trying to guess. Michael Moore is, first and foremost, a brilliant and successful producer of pure AgitProp, plain and simple. I recognize his work as such, and that is why I rightly call it a screed. Most of the time, I don't agree with Moore's view or point, but I always deeply respect the skill and talent with which his movies are made. The man is a master of getting his view of the world across in an entertaining and evocative manner, and no matter how wrong or right I might think he is, I have to acknowledge the brilliance of his work. None of this has anything to do with my anger, however.

I am angry, because for over a decade I have ranted about how this country has become an undemocratic corporate feudal state. I have ranted, but I have also kept an open ear, and mind, as people who, supposedly, know far more than I do about the financial system, have explained to me that my view is naive, uninformed, simplistic, romantic, and just plain wrong. I have always kept at the forefront of my mind, that perhaps I am really not as clever as I think I am. Perhaps my post-punk sensibilities, and peculiar life experience, have left me with a skewed view, which causes me to latch onto statistics that seem to prove my case, yet means something quite different to someone who has more than my, admittedly limited, knowledge of the inner workings of the financial world. Perhaps in my zeal to rage against what I see as one of the greatest injustices in the history of humanity, I lost the perspective to coolly evaluate the motives and actions of the people I excoriate. Maybe, just maybe, I was ascribing evil intent, and a willful subversion of everything I think America once stood for, where there was nothing but business as usual, and the status quo. 

The reason this angers me, is because in Moore's film, he mentioned a single document. Nothing else in the film really mattered to me, but this one document set my mind on fire. I had to find it, and find it I did. It is called Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances, and put quite simply, it is a product of Citigroup Research that not just proves every single argument I have made over the past decade, but glorifies it as a wondrous new opportunity for the rich. More to the point though, and thus the source of my anger, it clearly shows that every single one of the people who has lectured me about my unsophisticated naivete, was either less informed than myself, less intelligent than I am, or purposely attempting to mislead me, knowing full well that some of the brightest minds in the financial world (at least if we are to believe the financial sector model of intelligence, where the biggest earner must be the smartest person in the room), not only had come to the same conclusion I had, but were actively advising clients on how to capitalize on the situation.

I have to say, this new news about Apple specifically refusing to accept programs made in Flash CS5, just a few days before the CS5 launch, really has me laughing my ass off. Sure, it is the classic Apple dick move, but in reality, both Adobe and developers have just been 'asking for it' for years. As amazingly aggressive and just outright rude as the announcement is, all I can do is, much like Nelson on "The Simpsons," point and say "I said ha ha!"

Adobe has been 'asking for it,' because for years they have watched Apple release program after program which competed directly with them, like Final Cut, Motion, and Aperture. Yet like a battered spouse, Adobe has professed nothing but love for Apple, all the while watching Apple trash talk their products and whittle away their market share. Apple has done everything, up to and including actively sabotaging the functionality of Adobe software on their systems, to make Adobe look bad, and make their own mediocre offerings look better. Adobe should have seen this most recent development coming, as soon as Apple mandated that Adobe must rewrite their entire Creative Suite in Apple's development tools, to have the privilege of continuing to sell software to Macheads. I mean come on, it is an old-school Microsoft move. Use changes to your OS to mandate all development is done of your tools, then take advantage of undocumented APIs and enhanced versions of the toolset not available to third-party developers, in order to make sure no one can compete with your products. It isn't exactly a new tactic, in fact it is a massive throwback to the old days of computing. Yet Adobe went right along and poured tons of development resources into trying to chase iPhone development even as Apple was going on a full-tilt PR offensive against Adobe. It really shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone that Apple just cut to the chase and flatly denied Adobe's advances in their user agreement.

Of course Adobe wasn't the only one 'asking for it' here. The iPhone developers, who unquestioningly accepted, as a matter of course, Apple's bizarre system of acceptance rules and development requirements, couldn't have been 'asking for it' any more if they had walked into a maximum-security jail wearing nothing but a bra and panties. They told themselves that Apple had every right to take a 30% cut of their sales. They told themselves that Apple had every right to mandate where they sell their app. They told themselves that Apple had every right to tell them their app wasn't good enough, so wouldn't be sold. They told themselves all these things, because they are a ridiculous parody of a real developer, and don't understand who actually has the power in the relationship. It is the software that makes the platform, not the other way around. They were dazzled by hype and snazzy commercials with soothing nursery-school music, and were too busy dreaming of what they would do if they won the iPhone App lottery, and forgot there is a reason that most companies work hard to try to earn the trust of developers. That reason is that without developer support, your platform is nothing.

So, a while back I talked about how the very nature of the role of government had changed, and we no longer found ourselves in a democracy, but a corporate feudal state, ruled completely by a fiscal aristocracy. I didn't get much response from that, and no one seems to really believe it has really gotten to that point, so I guess it is time to rouse some rabble. Luckily, all I ever have to do is turn on the news, and I am provided with plenty of grist for the mill. I could go on about the $23 trillion we are giving the Wall Street crowd, but honestly I think people have become so desensitized to massive corporate welfare that numbers like that just cause them to shrug. Their health and well-being though, that is something people still seem to care at least a little about, which is why the latest story so jumps out at me.

Now, everyone knows that Swine Flu vaccine is in short supply, but what most people don't know is that the reason your grandmother, child or half the state of California can't get any, is because the big firms on Wall Street are more important than you. Here's how it works. While the government is having a hard time getting enough of the vaccine that they paid to develop for the normal citizenry, and the Center for Disease Control is advising that only those at risk should be vaccinated, Goldman Sachs was given 200 doses, Morgan Stanley received 1,000 doses and Citigroup has received 1,200 doses, before the vaccine had even made it to hospitals! What is even more incredible, is that these doses were given to them by their state government. Of course, everyone has become so inured at this point to the idea that in modern society that you are either rich or you are garbage that I doubt even this will shock some. However, stop and think about this for a moment. Your tax dollars went to fund the development of a vaccine, which by the way is actually owned by a private company, even though you paid for it to be researched, and then when they finally start producing it, they can't keep up with demand. Since they can't keep up with demand, the federal government gives an allotment to each state, with instructions that it only be given to at risk patients. When those doses get to New York, the state government decides that the richest financial institutions are more 'at risk' than the patients of hospitals, pediatricians, and geriatrics specialist, all on your dime.

This is a silly post that I want to put up just because I have already been through this with USB. About a week ago, news broke all over the Internet that Apple had played a pivotal role in designing the new Light Peak standard by Intel. Now it turns out that this was in no way true. Now I don't really expect anyone to care all that much about this. The only reason I'm posting is because I know good and damned well that years from now, when it is a standard in all computers, the crazy Macheads will use the false reports of it all being Apple's idea, as another example of how innovative Apple is, and how they invented everything. They do it with USB (which Apple had no involvement with, and which only appeared on Macs years after it was standard equipment on PCs), they do it with FireWire (which was developed by Adaptec, Sony and SGI, and in which Apple's only involvement was to come up with the snazzy name and say they wanted something like a GameBoy connector, then let other people actually do the development), and they will no doubt do it again with Light Peak. I just point this all out, because in 2015, when I am sure some Machead will be trying to argue that Light Peak was developed by Apple, I want some sort of proof of that not being the case, before the technology even launched.