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A Blockbuster election - October 27, 2008

I guess we can assume that H. Wayne Huizenga, the man who built Blockbuster Video into a powerhouse in the 1980s and early 90s before unloading it for a fortune on some chump named Redstone, will be voting Republican this year. Huizenga, who currently owns but is looking to sell the Miami Dolphins, told the Miami Sun-Sentinel that the presidential election is weighing heavily in his plans. That is, he'd like to sell before Democrat Barack Obama has a chance to be sworn in as president and raises the capital gains tax.

"He wants to double the capital gains tax, or almost double it," Huizenga said. "I'd rather give it to charity than to him."

Of course, it's tempting to point out that Huizenga would not actually be writing a personal check to President Obama. Or that a fair case could be made that an overly solicitous treatment of capital gains over the past two decades (as opposed to, say, work) was a powerful spur to just the sort of reckless and speculative financial legerdemain that is the cause of our current economic crisis.
But, hey. Huizenga, whom I got to know a little bit back in the day, made is first fortune hauling trash in Chicago. So I'm not about to argue with the man.
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