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More on Steve Bannon — 27 Comments

  1. Waiting to see how the Trump Administration plays out–at least in the first 100 days–but Bannon calling for “economic nationalism” already gives me the creeps.

  2. Hard not to be reassured that Bannon is a great pick to be the chief strategist for a Trump administration.

  3. I notice that the introductory blurb the author describes the UKIP as a far right party whereas in the transcript Bannon specifically differentiates between the UKIP and the NF in France.

  4. For what it’s worth, I read the transcript.

    There were a few comments, written at Buzzfeed, claiming that Bannon was clearly an outrageous racist, but I don’t see where that comes from.

    There are some things in the transcript that I don’t agree with, and there are a few things that I think are inaccurate, but the wild racist alt-right bogey-man? That’s simple gutter politics.

    P.S. I don’t like Breitbart and never read it. Trump’s made some good appointments and nominations, but I still think that he’s a reckless buffoon and clearly not a small-government conservative. I voted for him because I thought Hillary would be worse. I mention all this to forestall those who’ll interpret a defense of Bannon as an embrace of the alt-right. It’s not. Yikes, I’m already getting tired of feeling defensive.

  5. Very opposite how he’s been portrayed. For a guy who’s been called an anti-Semite, he certainly takes the opportunity to say “Judeo-Christian” a lot — to a Catholic audience!

    The notion that someone is an anti-Semite because anti-Semites post comments on his website is ridiculous. If true, that makes NBC, CNN, CBS, ABC, MSNBC and every other news site anti-Semitic, since every article about Israel, and most articles about the entertainment industry or banking will have anti-Semitic comments.

  6. P.P.S.
    I almost forgot to mention the main themes of Bannon’s talk:
    1. He strongly supports free-market capitalism.
    2. He strongly opposes crony capitalism.
    3. He strongly opposes state capitalism.
    4. He strongly opposes radical Islam.
    5. He strongly supports democratic governments that follow Judeo-Christian traditions.

    Oh, the horrors of it all.

  7. He didn’t really address the specifics of the question from Mario Fantini of European Dignity Watch about racist groups in Europe. His answer was basically that it’s being fueled by unemployment. Later in answer to a similar question he said this:

    I think when you look at any kind of revolution – and this is a revolution – you always have some groups that are disparate. I think that will all burn away over time and you’ll see more of a mainstream center-right populist movement.

    Here he finally acknowledged the alt-right without naming them. To him these fringe groups will just fade away as it’s all sorted out. That will be when all those factories are built and the jobs miraculously come back – and when we all sing kumbaya.

  8. A note of contention with Cornflour:

    1. He strongly supports free-market capitalism.

    No. He supports capitalism tempered by Christian values. He went out of his way to bring in Ayn Rand as an example of someone whose idea of free-market capitalism is at odds with this. He claimed that type of capitalism sees people as commodities. This was an indirect attack on Paul Ryan who handed out copies of Atlas Shrugged to his staff, as well as Sen. Ron Johnson who is/was an admirer of Rand. It was also his way of justifying “free-market capitalism” without free trade. He and Trump are protectionists in line with Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, and every trade union in the country.

  9. The Other Chuck: “He claimed that type of capitalism sees people as commodities.”

    That approach to managing businesses came into vogue in the 1970s or a bit before. Major business schools were teaching that all businesses were essentially the same and there was a standardized way to manage them. In that model employees are just parts in the machine and can be replaced just like nuts, bolts, and other spare parts. I saw it as it came into the airline industry. Pilot experience, training, and competence were no longer valued as highly. There was a surplus of pilots from the military looking for work . The airline managements saw this as an opportunity to hire younger, cheaper pilots at what was basically a much lower starting wage than prevailed at the time. They had no loyalty to long time employees and created a climate of distrust and dissatisfaction that was corrosive to morale and safety. I can only laugh at the problem they have created for themselves now that there is a shortage of trained pilots. They are going to have to train them themselves and then work hard to keep them in the fold. Ah, karma is sweet.

    The CEO of the airline I worked for had built the company as a family. He was loyal to the employees and they were super loyal to him. That all changed after he retired and management was taken over by managers from the hotel industry. They purposely made war on the pilots and mechanics with the goal of driving senior people out and replacing them with cheaper, less experienced pilots and mechanics.

    That is the type of thing Bannon is talking about, IMO.

    The other thing Bannon is getting at, IMO, is the outsize compensation for the managerial class. They pay themselves lavish salaries at the expense of shareholders and employees. Along with crushing government regulation, these management policies have helped create the shrinkage of the middle class and anger of blue collar workers.

    I agree with his thesis that people with capital need to take seriously the stewardship of it, because it is the lifeblood of our economy. Using it to create new businesses that employ people is its highest and best use.

    What I wonder about is why he has allowed the alt-right to run wild at Breitbart. Is it the idea that free speech, even if it is hateful, is better than censorship? I hope so, but would like to see more information on that issue.

  10. “Is it the idea that free speech, even if it is hateful, is better than censorship? ”

    Pretty much and I heard as much from the mouth of Andrew Breitbart during a dinner conversation. In addition, alt-right is pretty much the favorite boogyman of the moment.

  11. The companies which treat their workers as commodities do not prosper in the long run. There is a need for solidarity and loyalty, sense of common purpose and mutual responsibility. Japanese entrepreneurs know it very well, such feodal sensibilities are cultural heritage worth to preserve and cultivate.

  12. J.J.:

    The managerial system you experienced is self-defeating as is the stranglehold unions have placed on businesses from the other end. I saw first hand how that can destroy a large, well meaning business.

    I worked in a factory in the S.F. Bay Area in the 1970s where I learned my trade. There were three unions in plant representing warehousemen, machinists, and the primary trade. Each negotiated separate contracts timed to expire at the worst possible point for the business. There were constant disputes involving work rules, overtime, and the use of someone in one union doing work assigned exclusively to another union. As an example, a machinist contract would expire and the 9 members of that union would strike which would stop all shipments in and out of the factory because Teamsters would honor it. Only so much work could continue building inventory before the entire plant was forced to shut down putting over 400 out of work. As you can guess, that company is no more. Some of the products we made there are now imported from Vietnam!

    As to Bannon being an advocate of Christian paternalistic capitalism, I suggest you ask someone who knows first hand about it, Ben Shapiro. You can find his opinion at The Daily Wire.

  13. Since capitalism is amoral as a philosophy, doesn’t it need a moral framework to operate? Since the nation is historically Christian, it make sense that Christian values proved the framework for capitalism to work.

  14. Somebody linked that article in comments section on a recent article here.

    My response? If one takes this quote and compares it to bunion’s behavior wrt managing notsobritebarf, one has to question if he really means what he says.

    “It’s something that should be at the heart of every Christian that is a capitalist – “What is the purpose of whatever I’m doing with this wealth? What is the purpose of what I’m doing with the ability that God has given us, that divine providence has given us to actually be a creator of jobs and a creator of wealth?”

    I think it really behooves all of us to really take a hard look and make sure that we are reinvesting that back into positive things. – Steve Banion

    Often, behavior tells us more about a person than their words.

    He may have the benefit of the doubt at the moment, but he has some ground to earn before he is “at par”, AFAIC.

  15. “The other thing Bannon is getting at, IMO, is the outsize compensation for the managerial class. They pay themselves lavish salaries at the expense of shareholders and employees.” – JJ

    Yet he found a home with trump. Add debt holders to his list, btw.

    Does he judge trump’s “compensation” (in its various forms), received prior to his bankruptcies, outsized or “normal”?

    This seems to be a sticking point of critics.

    How outsized or not they are, IDK.

    Kind of like asking how outsized are the clintons’ compensation for speaking engagements.

    To most of us it “sounds” so, but maybe not. Both cases are within the realm of legal and both are voluntary agreements.

  16. @Other Chuck – yes, its seems he strained to make that differentiation. Given where he was speaking, it seems he wanted to appeal to their religious sensibilities.

    Given the dichotomy of his behavior to his words (as pointed out above), it brings to question if he really believes these things.

    The thing with trade barriers and such, it seems to elevate the position of one set of cronies over others.

  17. Big Maq: “Does he judge trump’s “compensation” (in its various forms), received prior to his bankruptcies, outsized or “normal”? ”

    Trump is not the CEO of a publicly held company. As such he can pretty much do what he wants. What I’m speaking of is the managerial class at publicly held companies. They are employees of the stockholders and at one time the Boards of Directors (BODs) were the stockholder’s’ watchdogs to prevent them from looting the companies. Starting in the late 60s BODs became increasingly made up of company insiders or close allies of the management teams. With the friendly boards the managements were able to award themselves increasingly rich salaries while the stockholders and employees took a backseat. Not all management teams took that road, but enough to make it a major concern for anyone interested in honest corporate governance. The government – business crony capitalism is one form of corruption. The BODs that are packed with insiders and allies of the managers is another.

    The Other Chuck: “……the stranglehold unions have placed on businesses from the other end. I saw first hand how that can destroy a large, well meaning business.”

    Yes, unions are a problem. At least in the form where the managements of the union are professional union thugs as they are in the SEIU, UAW, the Teamsters, and other nationally organized and managed unions. Over the last 30 years of labor surpluses the unions have steadily lost power and membership. One reason is that companies shipped the work overseas. Another is that right to work laws have blunted their tyrannical control over workers. The only unions that are fairly strong are the ones that ought not to exist – the government employees unions. I could write a small book on why government employees do not need to be unionized, but the primary one is that government employees have better job security than employees in any other part of our economy.

    A union can be a good thing in a company where there are a lot of people performing the same jobs. It provides a voice to the workers for pay, time off, safety, and other issues that arise on the job. During the years after WWII (1946 – 1970s) there was a shortage of labor in this country and the unions became too powerful and infiltrated by thugs who didn’t care about the union members or the companies that employed them.

    I was a member of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which was a pretty good union. It was never run by outsiders. It was a loose association of local chapters and compulsory membership was not required. In spite of that, 95% of the pilots at my airline were members. Each airline’s union was unique in it’s work rules, pay scales, and benefits. Although there was always a vocal minority that considered management to be the “enemy,” for the most part the membership recognized that our jobs were dependent on the success of the company. As such, we worked with management to promote a successful operation. When the hotel management team came along, that all changed for the worse. It took 15 years for things to come to a head. After two years of negotiations they locked the ALPA pilots off the property and began hiring replacements.(Or SCABS as we called them.) Fortunately for me and my 4500 fellow pilots, we came up with a legal maneuver based on a rather well known provision of labor law that forced them to take us back and reinstate us in our jobs. It was a close thing, but from that point on (8 years for me) the atmosphere was one of mutual distrust and anger. Retirement came as a release from a situation, which at one time had been a delight to go to work, that had become one of grimly working to do your best possible job while feeling despised by the management.

    As to Ben Shapiro’s take on Bannon, I would not expect it to be favorable. They split rather quickly on Shapiro’s dislike of Trump versus Bannon’s support. Bannon is an experienced businessman and investor. Shapiro is an intellectual pundit. They are about as different as oil and water. I’m willing to reserve judgment on Bannon until I see more.

  18. @JJ – I raise the question because trump still had a fiduciary duty to the debt holders. Let’s not dismiss the concern all because “trump can do what he wants”. There is both a legal and ethical concern.

    As for the agency issue of executives truly representing the shareholders, I happen to agree that there has been an overly cozy relationship between them and the BOD, to the detriment of shareholders in some (many?) cases.

    Personally, I would vest executive share options beginning after 5 years, and have a release schedule that goes out to 20 years, with 75% of the shares released in the latter half.

    Too many get rewarded for financial manipulations, stock buybacks, and short term cuts (e.g. outsource overseas).

    But, this all is far from the discussion wrt bunion.

  19. One of the stupidest things I’ve heard by the DC crowd (even if soon to be) since pelosi’s “we have to pass the bill to see what’s in it”…

    We’re just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution” – steve bunion on the trillion dollar (deficit?) infrastructure plan he is pushing
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-18/steve-bannon-interviewed-issue-now-about-americans-looking-not-get-f%E2%80%94ed-over

  20. Big Maq, thanks for the link. Interesting. Sounds a bit like Harry Hopkins and FDR.

    Infrastructure needs to be done, but the $895 billion that was supposed to go for infrastructure in 2009 never made it to jobs because it takes time to tee them up – mostly due to environmental regs. So, the Obama administration gave it out to their favorite Dem organizations and made it a permanent part of the budget. Don’t want to see that again. It can take a year of Environmental Impact Studies before a shovel of dirt is moved. Build America Bonds could be used to raise money to do the work, but should only be sold when projects are ready to go, not before. I sure don’t want to see that kind of profligate deficit spending in the budget again.

  21. Big Maq:

    Bannon shouldn’t give interviews. They expose too much. And he should lay off the icing.

  22. Japanese entrepreneurs know it very well, such feodal sensibilities are cultural heritage worth to preserve and cultivate.

    I’ve also noted that before.

    Many of Japanese zaibatsu, use primogeniture in the feudal tradition.

    In the West, large corporations can’t be passed from father to son with any kind of quality of transmission. The culture negates it and doesn’t support it. Rags to riches, to rags stories. Too much focus on individualism and making one’s own way with no connections to any tradition or clan.

    Bannon and other Breitbart editors/reporters split on the issue of Bannon preferring Trum’s version of the story to a Breitbart reporter’s claim that one of Trum’s staff manhandled her. As if she was a SJW Leftist, an enemy of the campaign. Then later Trum and his staff lied about this ever happening, and Bannon believed it.

    Republicans have this habit of thinking anyone that believes in their religion or Constitutional ideology, has to be a good guy. It’s like living in a bubble. It was not true of the Left’s triumvirates, and it isn’t true of Americans either.

  23. I noticed that Nate Silver and co a 538 were having a round table discussion and all called Bannon a ‘white nationalist’ . The racist meme again. I don’t think he is either an anti semite – see Jewish Spengler’s defence at pjmendia, and I don’t think he is a racist. But I do think we are at a peculiar moment where nationalism is making a comeback because the internationalist agenda has gone too far. Ask the school girls of Rotherham about it or the fraulines of Munich. So yes, I support say Marine La Penn not because I ma a racist but because I absolutely oppose those who would dismiss nation and culture as mere mental constructs and support massively fundamentalist Islamism in the name of multiculturalism. I red the Bannon piece too and thought he had things only half thought out, but working toward decent ends. Mostly I think he is being smeared because he proved to be a capable operative in helping Trump defeat the MSM. I presume we see his hand in the YouTubes Trump is releasing directly to the public and leaving MSM languishing the snow like Henry IV at Canossa.

  24. Ymarsakar:

    Republicans have this habit of thinking anyone that believes in their religion or Constitutional ideology, has to be a good guy.

    An insightful remark. Have a Happy Thanksgiving, Y. And everyone.

  25. “Infrastructure needs to be done, but the $895 billion that was supposed to go for infrastructure in 2009 never made it to jobs because it takes time to tee them up — mostly due to environmental regs.” – JJ

    Having been involved in bids to various governments, including Federal, when obama promised the funding would go to projects with “shovel ready jobs” implying it would be months that was full blown ignorance on his part.

    The procurement process on its own accord is hard pressed to have a 12 month turnaround, let alone the lead time it takes to transfer and allocate the funding within a department / agency, environmental and other regulatory reviews, etc., etc..

    It could have all been “fastpathed” by the POTUS by executive order (by some kind of “emergency” declaration), but that has its own issues (e.g. open him up for charges of favoritism).
    .

    My HUGE beef with all this “infrastructure investment” talk on the part of politicians is that they under-fund and defer politically invisible maintenance on existing infrastructure, often in favor of politically visible, shiny, new, “jobs creating” infrastructure.

    What are the chances that funding for this new set of infrastructure projects on the part of trump won’t have any set-aside, let alone projection of future maintenance costs, that needs to be in a future budget?

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