The big news this morning from the capitol was about a new kind of lobbying group comprised of citizens with a common interest. K Street was pretty deserted for a while after the corporate-sponsored lobby groups lost their grip on government after the mega-corps were broken up, but now there are dozens of what they're calling CitizenSIGs to take up the slack. You may only have a representative and a couple of Senators assigned to the stretch of dirt that you live on, but you can also have as many voices in their ears as you have interests. That's why you're subscribed to the mailing lists for ll three of your hobbies, as well as a couple of technical areas that you have expertise in, and they want to know what you'd like them do tell the folks in Congress for you.
A number of the ultra-rich did leave the country with what they could get away with, but the conditions placed upon their exit put a quick end to their dreams of being absentee puppeteers of their US holdings. The prohibitions against them owning US companies unless all of the wealth and earnings gained from domestic business were subject to US tax law soured the lot of them to keeping their fingers in the pie, so they're enjoying their wealth in nations that cater to it. Meanwhile, smaller businesses in which there's a much narrower gap between the workers and upper management are thriving, and some are even converting to worker-owned structures.
Big-box stores, such as Wal-Mart, which were abandoned rather than allow the workforce to unionize, are also finding new uses, as are the vacant storefronts which are being refilled by locally owned and operated independent or coop-affiliated businesses. And the stranglehold that industry organizations such as RIAA and MPAA had on their respective fields has been replaced by countless examples of what the folks at TechDirt have been touting for years: give your fans a reason to support you, and they will. The independent music and movie scene has been experiencing a renaissance of creativity, especially now that copyright rules have been made sane again.
How about you? What do you see out there?
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