A lawyer once told me that what lawyers do
is to watch where the money is going,
and then go stand in front of it.
It is not just lawyers. It is our entire financial community.
People used to make money by producing goods and services.
Rumor has it that some people still do. People still grow food,
build computers and sew clothing, make cars, build houses,
staff schools, provide fire and police protection, or play baseball
or golf so that we can amuse ourselves over a beer someone brewed.
But the real wealth is made by people who watch where the money
is going, and then go stand in front of it, skimming, scamming,
and scraping as much of it off as they can get away with.
We pay insurance companies billions of dollars to facilitate health care.
Enormous amounts of that money never provide health care for anyone
except for the executives who run the companies for the benefit
of the people who run the company. One of our local health insurance
pirates personally drained $1.7 billion dollars into his own pockets.
He cannot think of enough ways to buy property on Lake Minnetonka.
Almost the entire financial community--not just the banks and
investment houses, but the thousands of people who "invested"
retirement accounts, and personal stock portfolios, displayed
the ingenuity and complexity of the Lord God who lookied into
the darkness and created light, and suns and moons and derivatives
and futures and pastures and fiscal churns that tumbled the money
like fall leaves around a corner, all the while milking the cash cow,
skimming off the cream, curdling the accounts, and lining their own
pockets. Small investors, relatives, old people, young couples
thinking they were building their future, saw their money go away
"through the market" and disappear, never more to be seen.
Miraculously, the people who helped them "build their futures"
rewarded themselves monstrous bonuses, golden parachutes,
off-shore accounts, for having done such a good job of taking
other people's money and keeping it for themselves.
They are not the people who are providing new business.
They are not investing in mom-and-pop operations, hiring
the unemployed, paying taxes for the goods and services we need.
They are the people who got bailed out, and who sock it away.
No wonder people are angry! But the people who are angry,
who are hurting, or who know in their secret heart-of-hearts
that they are not that far away, themselves, from sliding into
disaster, defend the pirates and scavengers who stood in front
of their money. They are the people who chant the mantras
about trickle-down policies, who want to give the richest
people in the country the lowest relative taxes, and who, at the
same time, want their own taxes cut, even if it guts our schools,
turns our bridges into rust heaps, ignores pollution, floods
our cities, starves our police and fire services, denies decent
health care for millions of poorer people, and drives people
with any brains at all crazy trying to change the whole system.
'Tis, indeed, a gift to be that simple.
It is especially a gift to the people who aren't investing in anything,
but who know where the money is going, and who have been
standing in front of it. Not just watching. Stealing it. Legally.
is to watch where the money is going,
and then go stand in front of it.
It is not just lawyers. It is our entire financial community.
People used to make money by producing goods and services.
Rumor has it that some people still do. People still grow food,
build computers and sew clothing, make cars, build houses,
staff schools, provide fire and police protection, or play baseball
or golf so that we can amuse ourselves over a beer someone brewed.
But the real wealth is made by people who watch where the money
is going, and then go stand in front of it, skimming, scamming,
and scraping as much of it off as they can get away with.
We pay insurance companies billions of dollars to facilitate health care.
Enormous amounts of that money never provide health care for anyone
except for the executives who run the companies for the benefit
of the people who run the company. One of our local health insurance
pirates personally drained $1.7 billion dollars into his own pockets.
He cannot think of enough ways to buy property on Lake Minnetonka.
Almost the entire financial community--not just the banks and
investment houses, but the thousands of people who "invested"
retirement accounts, and personal stock portfolios, displayed
the ingenuity and complexity of the Lord God who lookied into
the darkness and created light, and suns and moons and derivatives
and futures and pastures and fiscal churns that tumbled the money
like fall leaves around a corner, all the while milking the cash cow,
skimming off the cream, curdling the accounts, and lining their own
pockets. Small investors, relatives, old people, young couples
thinking they were building their future, saw their money go away
"through the market" and disappear, never more to be seen.
Miraculously, the people who helped them "build their futures"
rewarded themselves monstrous bonuses, golden parachutes,
off-shore accounts, for having done such a good job of taking
other people's money and keeping it for themselves.
They are not the people who are providing new business.
They are not investing in mom-and-pop operations, hiring
the unemployed, paying taxes for the goods and services we need.
They are the people who got bailed out, and who sock it away.
No wonder people are angry! But the people who are angry,
who are hurting, or who know in their secret heart-of-hearts
that they are not that far away, themselves, from sliding into
disaster, defend the pirates and scavengers who stood in front
of their money. They are the people who chant the mantras
about trickle-down policies, who want to give the richest
people in the country the lowest relative taxes, and who, at the
same time, want their own taxes cut, even if it guts our schools,
turns our bridges into rust heaps, ignores pollution, floods
our cities, starves our police and fire services, denies decent
health care for millions of poorer people, and drives people
with any brains at all crazy trying to change the whole system.
'Tis, indeed, a gift to be that simple.
It is especially a gift to the people who aren't investing in anything,
but who know where the money is going, and who have been
standing in front of it. Not just watching. Stealing it. Legally.
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