TW: Have been meaning to get to this. The five conservatives on the SCOTUS have decided corporations should have the same rights as folks. Barry Ritholz quoting Jeremy Grantham captures a key difference between the average volk and a corporation. The populists may think these days that the Republicans are their huckleberries but not so much.
From the Big Picture blog:
"Supremely Extreme: Another “Day That Will Live in Infamy”.
Five Supreme Court justices today announced that not only are corporations people and that their money is free speech – this is old hat and a very ugly hat at that – but now, there should be no limit to the money they spend to influence political outcomes. This would be one thing if corporations really were “democratic associations” of humans that the Founding Fathers may have wanted to protect.
They are, instead, small oligarchies of top management. Thus, the top management of major oil and coal companies can decide what political outcomes they want to promote, say, unlimited production of carbon dioxide (none of their CEOs apparently has grandchildren!), utterly without any approval of their decisions by the millions of actual owners.
The financial power of corporations was already in danger of overwhelming the democratic process in Congress and this makes the damage potentially unlimited and puts the Court’s seal of approval on it. So let’s do it in style and have a name change. The U.C.A. has a familiar look: The United Corporations of America!"
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/01/grantham-usa-uca/
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