‘The Kronies’ Will Make You Laugh in Despair about the State of American Capitalism

All hail Chimera Incorporated!
What, you think that corporation name sounds sinister? What kind of
American are you, anyway? No, Chimera Incorporated is bringing us
“The Kronies,” the awesome super-powered team that keeps this
country big and strong through the tools of crony capitalism. Save
us from those selfish entrepreneurs who want the unpredictable
“market” to decide who the winners are. Why should the market get
to decide when we’ve got all this influence?

Here’s an introduction to The Kronies:

I defy you to find a better way to reach Gen Xers who distrust
the government (by which I mean, “Gen Xers”) than a parody of
terrible Saturday morning cartoons from 30 years ago. The site for
the Kronies is here, featuring
descriptions of their “heroes” and their abilities to direct
government spending their way with powers like mandates and
boondoggles. Right now they represent the ethanol industry, big
banks, big labor, and the military-industrial complex, led by “Big
G,” the manifestation of the bipartisan nature (his costume is
equally split between red and blue) of government crony spending.
The site promises a shop coming soon, and we can only hope they
follow through.

Glenn Beck and The Blaze tracked down the mastermind of the
site, John Papola, CEO of Austin-based production company Emergent
Order. Beck
interviewed Papola about the bipartisanship nature of crony
capitalism and the business culture that makes it so hard to fight.
In short, the more powerful the government, the greater the
incentive for crony capitalism.

“I really believe that it’s fundamentally the unique nature of
government as a monopoly that gives rise to these things,” he told
Beck. “Whether you’re General Motors or General Electric or — you
name the big corporation — and you have a fiduciary duty to go
after the maximum profit, and you have the opportunity to use
legislation to help do that or help keep your competitors at bay,
you’re gonna do it. The incentives are so perverse that it’s not
even a matter of morality after a certain point, because if your
competitors are doing it, are you going to fire your people to be
the nice guy, because you let the other guy take the subsidies and
rig the rules against you?”

I’m crossing my fingers for a video game in the future. As it’s
a licensed intellectual property, it must be a very, very bad video
game that costs too much, as is typically the case.