Let them eat cake

I purposely did not say yesterday that things couldn’t get any weirder, and I’m glad. Because a couple of twits from the inner circle of kleptocracy just raised the tone-deafness stakes.

First, Lara—wife of Qusay—had this message for the 800,000 federal workers being held for ransom by her increasingly unhinged father-in-law. “It’s not fair to you, and we all get that, but this is so much bigger than any one person. It is a little bit of pain, but it’s going to be for the future of our country, and their children and their grandchildren and generations after them will thank them for their sacrifice right now.”

The image of this gilt bimbo dismissing the very real hardship of everyone who’s gone without a paycheck since before Christmas as “a little bit of pain” is just beyond the beyond. But then Wilbur Ross, the grifting commerce secretary, stepped into the ring.

Like his master, Ross’ ego is tied up with being perceived as a billionaire but he’s been outed by Forbes as a mere millionaire. Also like the Kleptocrat, the equity manager was supposed to have divested himself of his financial interests, but so far nah. Also, he has remarkably robust connections with Russian oligarchs.

Also—like everyone in the Cabinet—despite his unquestionable wealth, he doesn’t seem to ever have enough. Forbes reported last August that while running his private equity fund, Ross consistently stole money from his client accounts, to the cumulative total of $120M. He settled lawsuits, and paid a multi-million dollar fine to the SEC in 2016. But here’s the absolute corker: his employees revealed that Ross used to take handfuls of Sweet’N Low packets from a nearby restaurant.

Thus the measure of the man.

So with that background, let’s cut to the tape.

Yes, the necrotic gargoyle is not only utterly without empathy for actual humans, but he’s completely clueless about how finances work; he likens borrowing against the expectation of getting paid at some point in the future to a “government-guaranteed loan”. He concedes that the workers will “have to pay a little bit of interest”, but he shrugs that off. Because of course he thinks the little people ought to float the government while he and his ilk continue their grifts.

But wait, there’s more. Because Ross went on to dismiss concerns about the hundreds of thousands of feds who are furloughed or being forced to work without pay. They’ll get paid eventually… But even if they never do, 800,000 people is “a third of a percent of our GDP, so it’s not like it’s a gigantic number overall.”

Here’s what Paul Krugman had to say about that:

Because of course it’s not just the actual government employees who are screwed, it’s all those contractors (and their employers), as well. And they won’t get back pay out of it. Plus, there’s the knock-on effect on all the companies—shops, restaurants, healthcare providers—whose business from the feds and contractors are drying up. And all the scientific research that’s been halted for lack of funds. We’re now being told that our much-vaunted miracle economy may wind up with zero growth this quarter.

(Then there's White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow referring to the people forced to come to work without getting paid as "volunteering". And White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett declaring that all 800,000 furloughed/"volunteering" workers are really getting a vacation.)

But Lara, Wilbur and their grotesque ilk will no doubt shrug that off. Extending their Ancien Régime mindset, it's après nous le déluge.