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— Dealsense —
History is replete with efforts to preserve the free market by establishing repulsive business entities. Several Paleolithic cave paintings portray what is perhaps the earliest such program. Archaeologists have identified the "wretching wildebeest" in several French caves -- a symbol widely believed to represent an "execrable hunting ground" -- as the first attempt by a society to rescue its economy using noxious commercial ventures. Later paintings depicting, in monochromatic hues, piles of empty vodka bottles suggest that the rescue plan was unsuccessful.
The critical question, of course, is what caused the failure. The best explanation scientists have been able to come up with is that the area was, after all, France. A somewhat more complete record was discovered around the turn of the century on scrolls excavated from what is now the Greenwich Desert but what was once a thriving community of hedge fund billionaires. In painstakingly drawn hieroglyphs, these ancient traders celebrated their accomplishments -- thousands of scrolls are devoted to detailed descriptions of massive dwelling places, ever more elaborate personal conveyances and the obsessive accumulation of trinkets. But the pictographs take on a more somber tone with the appearance of the "bursting wigwam" symbol. From that point on, the scrolls suggest that even the wealthiest individuals struggled to keep themselves afloat (see, e.g., the "hand-reaching-for-bonus" glyph, currently popular as a tattoo among Manhattan preschoolers) against forces they barely understood. The last of the scrolls evince a pitiful desperation marked by the establishment of a "baneful bazaar" that, it was hoped, would serve as a receptacle for all of the community's most toxic chattels. Again, however, the last-ditch effort ultimately failed to protect this primitive form of capitalism, an outcome illustrated by the appearance of an image that can be loosely translated as "the SEC is on line two." Other examples abound: The "ablative bank" of first century Rome, the "pestilential bank" of 14th-century Crimea, the "turnip locust bank" of 20th-century Dogpatch and, most loathsome of all, the "Bank of America bank" of 21st-century Charlotte. All represented noble, albeit pathetically inadequate, struggles to forestall a frightening descent into rampant egalitarianism. We can't let it happen again. This time, an inveterate share-the-wealth redistributionist might seize power. Someone like Stephen "Everybody Can Use My Password" Schwarzman. So what's the recipe for a bank that would be so thoroughly disgusting that Vladimir Ilyich himself would be reluctant to lead a proletarian revolution in the face of its eye-watering stench? Toxic mortgage assets are just a start. We need to add a steaming pile of putrid credit card accounts, whisk in an oozing mound of detestable credit default swaps, blend with a malodorous mass of atrocious ATM fees and toss in a commode with legs. Now that's a rank bank. But just to be on the safe side, let's not stop at financial institutions. Other sectors of the economy could use some noisome corporate cow chips. And it wouldn't be that hard in most cases. Like newspapers. Put Maureen Dowd, David Broder and Jonah Goldberg on the same op-ed page and add Sam Zell as CEO. Gross! Or cars. Take an automaker. Call it Chrysler. Ick! How about puppy squeak-toy manufacturing? ...? OK, let's stick to banks, cars and newspapers. That should be more than enough septic commerce to keep Adam Smith smiling and Karl Marx scowling. And the rest of us holding our noses on the bread line. |
Congress and the White House need to keep one thing in mind as they set about saving capitalism: It's easy enough to create a "bad bank" -- financial chieftains have been building such foul institutions for years -- it's quite another thing altogether to make sure the entity is truly odious enough to preserve our way of life. If the "bad bank" turns out to be just sort of mildly offputting, the communists win.
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