Mnuchin is shocked, so shocked

So I read in the Washington Post the other day that Steven Mnuchin was appalled that the The Los Angeles Lakers, a multi-zillion dollar sports franchise, had taken a $4.6 million loan meant for small businesses, and apparently planned to keep it, thank you very much, even though the plutocrats and corporations who own the Lakers need money the way that the rest of us need tooth decay. That is, not.

And Mr. Mnuchin was aghast at their crudity and greed, particularly when their actions were helping to drain a fund that other people, genuine small business owners and employees, really need.

Yet...

Come on. This is Steven Mnuchin we’re talking about. Multimillionaire. Guy who made his money doing pretty questionable things in the subprime mortgage market. And who has been a champion of unrestrained capitalism, neo-liberalism, and drowning the government in a bathtub for his whole professional life.

And now he’s freaked out by other people’s greed?

So, Mr. Mnuchin...let’s be real here. You’re right to be appalled. But this is the world you helped create, both during and before your time in the White House. This is the society you worked for. This is the code of behavior which was your own and which you have preached to the rest of us for so very, very long.

And now you’re appalled?

There is a certain irony in that, don’t you think?

Steve Mnuchin Contemplates The Universe He Helped Create

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About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

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