{"id":15926,"date":"2016-01-03T11:33:49","date_gmt":"2016-01-03T16:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=15926"},"modified":"2016-01-03T11:33:49","modified_gmt":"2016-01-03T16:33:49","slug":"america-2016-what-happens-when-a-nation-gives-too-much-political-power-to-the-super-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=15926","title":{"rendered":"America 2016: What Happens When a Nation Gives Too Much Political Power to the Super Rich"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/eartotheground\/item\/america_in_2016_is_what_happens_when_a_nation_gives_20160102\" target=\"_blank\">America 2016: What Happens When a Nation Gives Too Much Political Power to the Super Rich\u00a0<\/a><\/h3>\n<h6 class=\"date\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/images\/eartothegrounduploads\/10965911365_79651cc773_o.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"590\" height=\"360\" border=\"0\" \/><\/h6>\n<div class=\"entry_body_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"article_main_image\">\n<p class=\"article_main_image_captiondetail\">\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<em>Sheldon Adelson.\u00a0<small>(<a title=\"East Coast Gambler\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/eastcoastgambler\/\" target=\"_blank\">East Coast Gambler<\/a>\u00a0\/\u00a0<a title=\"CC BY 2.0\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\" target=\"_blank\">CC BY 2.0<\/a>)<\/small><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>As the high-powered shenanigans of Las Vegas casino mogul and GOP bankroller Sheldon Adelson show, \u201cOligarchy, rule by the few, also tends to become rule by the monstrously self-centered,\u201d Paul Krugman writes in The New York Times.<\/p>\n<p>Krugman continues in a column published Friday:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[&#8230;] it\u2019s obvious [&#8230;] that extreme wealth can do extreme spiritual damage. Take someone whose personality might have been merely disagreeable under normal circumstances, and give him the kind of wealth that lets him surround himself with sycophants and usually get whatever he wants. It\u2019s not hard to see how he could become almost pathologically self-regarding and unconcerned with others. [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Modern America is a society in which a growing share of income and wealth is concentrated in the hands of a small number of people, and these people have huge political influence \u2014 in the early stages of the 2016 presidential campaign, around half the contributions came from fewer than 200 wealthy families. The usual concern about this march toward oligarchy is that the interests and policy preferences of the very rich are quite different from those of the population at large, and that is surely the biggest problem. [\u2026]<\/p>\n<p>The most obvious illustration of the point I\u2019ve been making is the man now leading the Republican field. Donald Trump would probably have been a blowhard and a bully whatever his social station. But his billions have insulated him from the external checks that limit most people\u2019s ability to act out their narcissistic tendencies; nobody has ever been in a position to tell him, \u201cYou\u2019re fired!\u201d And the result is the face you keep seeing on your TV. [\u2026]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>America 2016: What Happens When a Nation Gives Too Much Political Power to the Super Rich\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Sheldon Adelson.\u00a0(East Coast Gambler\u00a0\/\u00a0CC BY 2.0) As the high-powered shenanigans of Las Vegas casino mogul and GOP bankroller Sheldon Adelson show, \u201cOligarchy, rule by the few, also tends to become rule by the monstrously self-centered,\u201d Paul Krugman writes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11403,11404,1092,614,11405,11406,11407,11408,8738,868],"class_list":["post-15926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-adelson-primary","tag-gop","tag-oligarchy","tag-paul-krugman","tag-republican-party","tag-republican-primary","tag-sheldon-adelson","tag-superrich","tag-truthdig","tag-wealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15927,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15926\/revisions\/15927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}