The Demise of a CEO: The Newsletter

Introduction

Welcome to The Cameron Journal Newsletter.

Each week I send out the latest headlines, the latest videos from The Cameron Journal and commentary about the week’s events. If you’re new here, my name is Cameron Lee Cowan, and I’m the Creative Director here at The Cameron Journal. You can learn more about me on the about page.I do research and commentary on politics, culture, and the world around us. Remember, The World is Hard, This is Not.

This was a busy week in the news. Bitcoin hit 100k for the first time. Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare, was shot before a shareholders meeting in New York City, and Elon Musk and company announced their plans to cut the federal government back by eliminating programs that were no longer authorized by Congress.

South Korea had a near coup and elections in Romania were cancelled after Russian interference. On Friday, the DC Court of Appeals has decided not to stop the Tik Tok ban passed by Congress last year. This means that the popular app could be eliminated from the US market by January 19th unless the app is sold off to an American buyer.

Meanwhile, the nomination of Pete Hegseth to be Defense Secretary is already hanging on by a thread. Combine that with the Democratic Party and leftist influencers continuing their post-election self-flagellation, and you have a rather typical week in America these days.

Updates

This week was great for The Cameron Journal. We have quite a bit of new content this week and a long Newshour from last week (posted below). Personally, I’m learning to live with our current cold snap in the Northeast which has extended to pretty much the entire East coast and into parts of the South. Cut to me making sure I can still start my car every few days. I do rather miss my Seattle digs for its moderate winters!

I do have two announcements. I’m almost finished editing America’s Lost Generation, so I will open up pre-orders again shortly. I’m also working on a new course on Plato from Dan Sanderson and Planksip—more on the new course in the New Year.

If you’re looking for a Christmas present that can really do something unique for someone, consider giving the gift of writing! My new writing courses are out now, and you can sign up for Fiction, Non-Fiction or both! To learn more, please visit The Cameron Journal Academy and check out my course: The Power of Story.

The Latest

This week, the internet was shocked and thirsty. On Thursday, Brian Thompson, just before a shareholder’s meeting in New York for United Healthcare (the health insurance company) was shot in broad daylight by an unknown assailant who dropped a cellphone and escaped shortly after. Police say that he has likely left the city and is in the wind. The internet exploded with thirst for the released pictures of the gunman, who looks to be a male in his mid-20s. Meanwhile, alongside the thirst posts, people were cheering the death of the Thompson. This has drawn some interesting criticism. Leftists, in favor of universal healthcare, have cheered this as positive progress, and elected Democrats and others have been critical of those who consider this death to be justice for some of the practices of the company he ran. Although, it is important to note it’s not just those who stand against health insurance companies and the American healthcare system who have been cheering his demise. His death crosses major political boundaries. I don’t pretend to have a dog in that fight, but I generally think killing people in broad daylight is a bad idea and should be discouraged.

But I do find two things fascinating: one is the bipartisan outpouring of horror stories about dealing with United Healthcare and health insurance in general as well as a sort of old-fashioned attitude around this you don’t see regularly. Killing a prominent person for acting against the interests of people was rather common in the 19th century. In the earliest days of statehood in Kentucky, a House Representative’s home was taken apart piece by piece and thrown in a river because of how he voted on some legislation. Then there were the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and James Garfield. Even in the 20th century, there were popular attempts on Presidents and other prominent people. I was reminded of a European case in 1978 when the CEO of Renault had laid off some workers, and the workers went to his house and shot him. In short, tall poppy syndrome still exists, and someone may come along with scissors and chop someone down.

There would not be the vitriol and sense of justice for this man if he didn’t work in healthcare. Everyone has a horror story of health insurance companies not covering care and people being unable to access healthcare due to their health insurance plan not covering something and leaving them with a nasty bill. Health insurance is a maze of coverages and rules that can be esoteric, and almost no one but the underwriters can understand it all. For the everyday person, when they are hurting, injured, and fighting for their life, they would rather not have to worry about a 20-page document of coverage. They just want to know that they will be ok and everything is being done to help them get back to their life. When you’re left with a quarter-million-dollar bill from a dead relative, multi-billion dollar profits for your health insurer are rage-inducing.

We are in a time of popular rage. From the outcome of the election to this shooting and its reaction, people are unhappy with how things are going. They are hungry for change and upheaval in the hopes that something new, that will help their lives, will emerge. I understand that popular rage, but I don’t think the new reality that we find ourselves will be positive. Italy went through the Time of Lead in the 1970s, and it was violent, deadly and didn’t help the ordinary Italian very much. I fear that we are entering such a time. When the system of corporate statism refuses change, humans have a way of shaking things up despite the best efforts of those in power to stop it. This was on full display this week in Georgia (the country) and Romania, both who are resisting Russian manipulation in their country. In South Korea, the popular rage stopped an outright coup which say the military in between the people and a government in disarray. So much for the end of history!

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