Privilege

John Cassidy exposes the fundamental nature of privilege among the 1%. In a stupid and pointless exercise he offers various candidates for the presidency of the World Bank and the reasons why they would be or not be the next. When writing about Timothy Geitner, the presumptive favorite, Cassidy "argues" that

[h]aving already said he is leaving the Obama Administration after the election, he needs a new job. His father worked for the Ford Foundation in Asia, so he is familiar with foreign countries and development issues.

What better reasons could you ask for? He needs a job and his father was  a big deal. News flash, knowledge is not inheritable and Geitner doesn't need a job. There is no understanding here that the WB pursues a narrow neoliberal agenda that has hamstrung economic recovery and the possibility of living a decent life. No understanding that the conventional ideas shared by the vast horde of neoliberal technocrats not only led to the current mess but that it is curtailing meaningful reform and, oddly enough, restraining any attempt to get the old version of winner take all capitalism wheezing its way forward.

This is the kind of thing that makes reasonable people despair of our future.