The Comrade and business leaders

The Comrade had a meeting today with the CEO's of Amazon, Florida Power & Light, Kodak, and Kraft. I see this going one of two ways.

1.) The Comrade asked them what impacts they have seen and/or can predict from massive tax increases on employment and on power sources. They told him the unvarnished truth, and the Comrade listened to their comments. This would be what the Comrade is fond of calling a "teaching moment," since he has absolutely no experience with profit-making organizations and perhaps it's dawning on him that he can't just go to the federal government for grants when he IS the federal government.

Maybe Jeff Bezos could inform the Comrade that, no, he doesn't have an underground vault full of an endless supply of gold dubloons; he earns his money on pretty slim retail profit margins. Kodak could tell the Comrade that the printing industry is going to hell in a handbasket, tied as it is to the general ups and downs of the economy. Florida Power & Light could explain that windmills just won't keep those home fires burning, and taxing the hell out of energy isn't going to make it easier to produce. Kraft might explain that if you curtail agriculture for the sake of preserving bait fish that prices on food will rise.

And maybe this will introduce some new thinking into the Comrade's current mental stew of marxist platitudes. Who knows? It could happen.

2.) In the other scenario, the Comrade offered the executives anything on the White House menu and their choice of foreign and/or domestic beers. He explained to them how critical it is that the nation go socialist so that we can be like other desperate bankrupt nations around the world so that they'll quit envying us and stop blowing up our buildings. Americans just have too much and even want more. Our gluttony is unbridled. We have to be reined in for the sake of the macro-economy (non-existent), to "save the planet" (absurd), and to swell the ranks of the SEIU, which organizes health care workers (pretty damn likely).

Mainly, the Comrade wants business leaders to get behind his socialist agenda. If one lunch doesn't work, maybe the Comrade will fly that wizard pizza chef from St. Louis to make them all an informal feast they can snack on while they watch the NFL on the White House flat-screen some Sunday. If only they'll hop on board and drink the Kool-Aid.

I'm curious about which way this went. I suppose we'll see.