LH--

1) Please give just one instance in the last 30 years in which your "immense financial forces" have been happier with Democrats than Republicans.

2) Your mantra of "immense financial forces" needs a bit of work. You say it as if the "immense financial forces" were a monolithic omnipotent being. They are none of the above. GE owns NBC. Do you think they're fine with it if ABC, owned by Disney, beats them in the ratings consistently? NBC (and the others) already feel under pressure from other claims on viewers' time--including i-Pods and MySpace. Is there no competition between Macroslop (my affectionate? term, don't you know) and Apple? And so on.

Whether you want to admit it or not, competition between the "immense financial forces" exists. Also, the Bush maladministration is doing its best to aid the big boys and gut antitrust, but they have not been having much luck lately. And in Europe, even Macroslop has been heavily fined--and may have to change the way it does business--since Europe takes antitrust seriously. In China, Walmart now has to deal with a union--not a standard Western-style union, but one which can and does influence working conditions.

So. as I say, the "immense financial forces" are neither monolithic nor omnipotent. As a result, it's absurd to say they "drive the agenda forward"--as if nothing can stop them. Certain companies would like to " drive the agenda"--but they have competition in their own industries, and have powerful forces opposing them.

I note with interest that you have not found time to address any of the several issues I have observed are frustrating the bible of your "immense financial forces"--and, you can bet, frustrating your "forces" themselves.

Your talk of "immense financial forces" "driving the agenda" --strongly implying that nobody else has any power---sounds perilously close, as I mentioned before, to your own form of predestination--your own Calvinism.