This follows up on the immediately preceding post.
So here’s some food for thought. Most major corporate CEOs have a corporate jet, and they have a pilot for that corporate jet. What qualities would a CEO look for in a pilot?
Would they want a person who cannot accurately acquire and process information about the weather?
Would they want to hire a pilot who does not understand the relation between his actions and the consequences of his actions?
Would they like a pilot who, when she makes a mistake, belligerently hallucinates falsehoods to explain away the facts—like some out-of-control chatbot, powered by runaway Artificial UnIntelligence?
Would the CEO want a person suffering from malignant narcissism—imagining himself to be the best pilot in the country, indeed, the best pilot who has ever lived, so capable that flying his jet through a hurricane is no cause for concern?
If the answer to these questions is no—and the answer surely is no—then why would the same corporate CEO be happy to hire a pilot for the nation who suffers from the same mental handicaps?
The Answer to My Rhetorical Question
The views of the Financial Times opinion writer are insightful, but let me add this.
We are talking about Fortune 500 CEOs, whose average compensation runs to about $17 million a year. A lot of these folks are not addicted to heroin, but they are addicted to money.
Just as a heroin-addicted paterfamilias will take the children’s milk money to spend it on a drug, so also a money-addicted person will optimize money making over considerations of common sense, not to mention considerations of empathy or morality.
Compare Joe Sixpack. Joe Sixpack didn’t go to college, but, still, he should have known enough to conclude that it was unwise to reelect Trump. When Joe Sixpack gets hurt by the tariffs and by the inflation resulting from mass deportation, he will be getting no more and no less than he deserves. I hope Joe learns from the terrible lesson he’s about to receive.
All that said, the greater responsibility falls on our country’s economic and intellectual elite.
Well and truly has it been noted that a fish rots from the head down.Â
Facing MAGA 