What if the governments of the world wised up? What if all of them simply stated, a decree, “You are no longer in debt. You owe no one. Everything you have is yours. Your house, your car, you furniture, your
What if the governments of the world wised up? What if all of them simply stated, a decree, “You are no longer in debt. You owe no one. Everything you have is yours. Your house, your car, you furniture, your appliances, your clothes. Even your horse.
We’re gonna start all over. Monopoly style. Every family on the planet will be given — or allowed- $10,000. Maximum.
Credit card interest? Down the drain. Ain’t no more. Keep the yen, the dollars, the pesos — the long colored paper stuff — in limited supply. Burn the rest. Think of the lovely bonfires. Roast hot dogs, marshmallows, chestnuts, tomatoes. Warm the tootsies.
I’m not an economist — whaddya know — but I think everything would level out. Buy a cup of coffee or a soda for a nickel? Rent for a three-bedroom house, 100 bucks a month? Water, electricity, 20 bucks? Executive salaries. A thousand a month? Too high? Lower it.
Idiots in corporations, big business and banks, wouldn’t have to play the accounting game. They owe as much they own? That’s pretty stupid. Can’t you rich guys live on your income just as we — the peasants of the world — do?
You can keep your often atrocious living quarters and mansions. Check ‘em out. How is it possible to have such bad taste? You can float around in your enormous yachts, wear disgusting looking outfits, stick diamond and emeralds in every orifice known to man or woman, hop around in your jets and helicopters and limousines, as long as you feed your kids and animals.
Your dead and buried race horses can still have mile high mounds of flowers on their graves, and your barns be trimmed in silver and gold, but don’t forget to feed them. I haven’t a clue what you’ll do with that multi-level race course, Happy Valley, in the heart of Hong Kong, other than let us peasants watch the show. Free. No betting allowed.
Guys, try to find and take a gander at a teNeues Publishing book, edited by Wolfgang Behnken, called “Luxury Equestrian Design.” We must always remember what peasants we are. I love horses and I think they should be kept in luxury. I mean kept — like their women are kept — but don’t forget the horses. Tell me, would they care for them so much if there were no money in it?
The Racing and Society Chapter is a hoot and a holler. Some of those women are decked out in elaborate and extraordinary tents. Do they keep clowns and elephants under there? The hats are darling!
Quoting F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The rich are different from us,” and Barbara Ward said, “If there were an insane asylum in the solar system. It would be planet Earth.”
I ask, “How is it the elite, who run the place, can always afford another war but can never afford to feed, house or educate us?”
I think a new deal — we’re gonna get there soon enough, anyhow — is better than putting the planet up for foreclosure. Don’t you?
•••
Bettejo Dux is a Kalaheo resident and author of “The Scam: A madcap romp through North Shore Kauai.”
