Big Money

Years ago, some brokerage outfit used to run ads with a curmudgeonly old man in a clubby atmosphere bristling with patrician condescension intoning, "We make money the old fashioned way; we EARN it."

It was probably the most effective ad ever done by a brokerage house. Using an old white male to voice the superiority of those who live off investments, the ad was a nuclear bomb in the class wars of America. Who doesn't earn their money? Those lower class peons and welfare queens, with their silly concepts of labor and taxes chewing away at the edifices of capital. How is money properly earned? Through investments, of course. Investing, you see, is "hard work". Old fashioned work, for old money.

This week, as in the weeks preceding and following, financial powerhouses are dropping like hotdog stands on a rainy day. Unlike hotdog stands, though, the Big Money Players aren't content to close up shop and go find another way to make a buck. Instead, they are turning to the rest of us and begging for help. And, because they make their money by holding on to ours, they have us over a barrel. Bail them out, or face macro-economic fallout that we cannot begin to fathom.

Kruschev told us "We will bury you". For a while, it seemed we had proven him wrong. But now, the West is controlled by men who use torture in secret gulags. Now, the West is controlled by those who spy on their own citizens, and seek to detain people indefinitely without charges. Now, the world financial struggle is controlled by those who happily seek state bail-outs and even nationalization.

When Kruschev threatened to bury us, most of us thought he was speaking on behalf of the proletariat. We were fools. Kruschev never represented the working class. He represented the same class of person that Cheney and Bush represent. And, folks, we're being buried. The old fashioned way. By big money.