Obama Czar: Free Market is Nonsense & We agree with Mao

Ron Bloom, Obama's Manufacturing Czar, states the Free Market is nonsense in this latest clip from Naked Emperor News. Bloom attended Harvard Business School according to a profile in The Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Bloom attended Harvard Business School, where he gravitated to populist business cases and was keenly interested in employee buyouts. After 10 years at investment banks, among them Lazard, he became special assistant to the USW president in 1996.

Both inside and outside the USW, Mr. Bloom is known as a financially savvy negotiator — with a tendency to spout profanities. In a 2007 article depicting Mr. Bloom’s role in the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Corp. takeover battle, The Wall Street Journal wrote some USW members thought Mr. Bloom is “too cozy with the moneymen.”

The following clip is from a speech at the 6th Annual Distressed Investing Forum held at the Union League Club in New York, February 27-2, 2008. Wait for the left to spin this as someone with a Che poster in their college dorm room.


This is a rough transcript of the portion of the speech shown in the clip:

Generally speaking we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money because they are convinced there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power. That this is an adults only, no limits game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from a barrel of a gun. We get it that if you want a friend you should get a dog.

Bloom has a history of giving provocative speeches. Consider the portion quoted in a piece by the Washington Examiner

"Let me give you some advice. First, we are big believers in dentist chair bargaining. For those of you not familiar with this approach, it is inspired by the story of the man who walks into his dentist's office, grabs the dentist by the balls and says, 'now, let's not hurt each other.' We do have a lot to lose and we and everybody else knows it. But what you need to understand is that we are willing to lose it."

— Prepared remarks for a speech to an International Association of Restructuring, Insolvency & Bankruptcy Professionals conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., May 21, 2006

What Bloom fails to understand is the country also has a lot to lose and we are not willing to lose it.