Not Even Ragged Dick Can Save Us From Ourselves (Dumb People)
The Way We Live Now: Well we ain't living like astute professional money managers, that's for sure. We won the lottery but spent it all at casinos and now our personal "Financial plan" reads "Cash4Gold." Is that bad?
I mean, really. One can almost understand someone who held a lucrative job and got themselves into trouble by budgeting as if that lucrative job income would continue forever. But when you're talking about striking it rich via the lottery, here's the thing: it does not continue "forever," or even, "ever." They give you some money and that's it. Therefore if you spend it all until it's gone, well, you sir, or ma'am, are a moron. So Lou Eisenberg, winner of $5 million in the 80s and now living in a mobile home on Social Security money: You seem like a nice guy, but you are a moron.
You look at a guy like Lou, who still goes betting on horses occasionally, and you ask yourself, "What can we learn from this?" Because if you can learn something from his moronic saga (nice guy! Just saying!), then it might all be worthwhile. And what you can learn here is, "It's too bad Lou spent all his money already, because Vegas casinos could really use some of it right about now."
It's this sort of lesson-taking out of moron-making that makes our country strong. Right? One would think. But in fact, no. Here in America we Go Big And Then Subsequently Go Home, Because We Have Spent Everything And Destroyed The Planet In The Process. It's sort of our motto. The money we've lost is lost forever. As are all of our jobs. Horatio Alger wrote neat little tales of redemption and upward mobility. But Horatio Alger was a child-fucker. In America, we rebuke him, by selling everything to Cash4Gold, for pennies on the dollar. And when it's all gone, you can always get a job at Cash4Gold.
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