Quote of the Day (B.C. Forbes, on a President at Bay)

“Congress no longer coughs every time he sneezes, no longer quails at his slightest bidding, no longer jumps through every hoop he waves, no longer rubber-stamps every bill his amateurish —not to say Communistic—legal henchmen hatch.”—B.C. Forbes quoted in “Thoughts on the Business of Power and Politics,” Forbes, November 22, 2010

I confess to pulling a trick on you with this quote, faithful reader. I’ve withheld a vital piece of information—namely, the identity of the President at the mercy of these congressional jackals.

But a hint at who the President might be lies in the identity of the writer of these words. It’s not Steve Forbes, the rich man who, twice in the last 15 years, decided that a Presidential bid was just the way to spend his boodles of inherited wealth; not even Steve’s father, Malcolm Forbes, who, acting like a combination of Holy Roman Emperor and medieval sultan, flew 800 invitees to Morocco for his 70th birthday, where they were greeted by 600 acrobats, jugglers, snake-charmers and belly dancers, not to mention 300 Berber horsemen.

No, this was B.C. Forbes, Steve’s granddad and Malcolm’s dad. The magazine run by him and his heirs forthrightly declared the date (1937) and President for the quote in question: Franklin Roosevelt, the “uncrowned king of the United States” after his 1936 landslide

At first glance, you can’t blame Steve and the rest of the family brain trust for indulging the temptation to quote this old chestnut of wisdom from B.C. (whose initials, come to think of it, testified to the antediluvian nature of his political and economic thinking). At the time of the quote, FDR, in a mad act of hubris, had unsuccessfully sought to “pack” the Supreme Court with young appointees sympathetic to the New Deal.

See the parallels to today? The younger Forbeses could: In 2010, they saw a Democratic President who, after a period of epic legislation, empowered by an electorate frightened by an economic collapse, had pushed things way too far, only to be dealt a setback by the populace; a chief executive who, if his instincts weren’t exactly “Communistic,” was certainly socialist, as evidenced by the health plan he’d pushed through Congress.

Unfortunately, the Forbes clan didn’t think through the implications of this quote. For starters, most historians credit the supposedly "Communistic" FDR with saving capitalism in its desperate hours during the Great Depression through regulatory reforms that restored people's confidence in the system.

A part of the Forbes quote that I did not cite earlier referred to FDR as the “virtually untrammeled dictator” of the United States at the height of his influence. But by the time he died in office, the President was more responsible than any man alive for rallying his people to drive out of power not one, not two, but three truly “untrammeled dictators”: Tojo, Mussolini and Hitler.

Moreover--and this must have been especially galling for B.C. Forbes (who, I just learned, lived the latter part of his life in my hometown, presumably on the other side of the tracks from yours truly)--FDR achieved all this by overcoming electoral odds far more daunting than those facing Barack Obama in 2012: mass sentiment against a Presidential third term, a decided GOP advantage in fundraising, and, in Wendell Willkie, the most energetic, articulate Republican Presidential nominee since--well, Theodore Roosevelt.

In other words, the Forbes family should have learned by now: don’t count a President out too soon.

But then again, anyone reading their flagship publication--whose favorite form of government, it's easy to see, is the plutocracy--should know by now, when it comes to assimilating the lessons of history, that the Forbes clan are less American or even Scottish than French Bourbon: with them, it's not so much a matter of forgetting nothing as learning nothing.

Quote of the Day (Steve Forbes, on Differences Among the Very Rich)

"A mere $500 million separated the two. In a billionaire's world, that is close."—Forbes Magazine editor-in-chief Steve Forbes, describing the financial photo-finish between traditionally filthy rich guy Bill Gates and the now even wealthier Carlos Slim, quoted in Barry Paddock, “America Loses Bragging Rights As Carlos Slim Tops Forbes’ Annual Ranking of World’s Billionaires,” The Daily News (New York), Thursday, March 11, 2010

One night, as an impressionable collegian, I visited a buddy of mine who was working for a wealthy man. While my friend and I were talking in the kitchen of his employer’s home, the man’s twentysomething daughter came in, laden with bags from her stop at a nearby upscale grocery.

After emptying various foodstuffs of staggering variety and plenitude, she turned one bag upside down. Out flew change from her trip. Only it wasn’t silver that spilled across the counter. It was more twenty- and fifty-dollar bills than I had ever seen anywhere (except for inside a bank) in my life.

I’m not sure what made my eyes bulge more: the sight of so many large bills (remember, this was more than 30 years ago) or the woman’s nonchalance at how she collected and disposed of the remainder of her grocery bill. You had the sense that if she misplaced one, two, or even three $50 bills, she’d never notice it.

This was my first concrete lesson in what F. Scott Fitzgerald meant by “The rich are different from you and me.”

I thought nothing could top that little episode in how the rich approach money until I read Steve Forbes’ quote above.

Mr. Forbes, maybe in your universe, $500 million comes to a “mere” amount. But it’s so far distant from my upbringing and current livelihood that I’d need a Mount Palomar telescope to glimpse it—and even then, I don’t know if I’d believe what I was seeing.

Oh, and another thing: For years, one of my friends has called Bill Gates “the anti-Christ.” Does this news item now mean that there are two anti-Christs? Is there enough room for all that money—not to mention the egos belonging to it all?