Let’s look at the current villain of our times, Bernard Madoff. What did he do wrong? What he did wrong was steal and pilfer, that’s obvious, but what he really did wrong was he did it to the wrong class of people and more importantly he did it to a group of people who held him in very high esteem, who for a lack of better words saw him as a hero. Why not you may ask? He was a man who for the last twenty years was able to alleviate your investment concerns and give you 9-10 percent returns annually, never mind if it didn’t make sense while all his peers were taking hits. Then again he was a super hero, and just like you and me- rich, reserved, well admired, he lived the opulent life you secretly dared to live one day or were in some degree already living.
The question of course isn’t how did someone like Madoff get away with this, and why wasn’t the SEC on his trail, the real question is why weren’t you on his tail? Think about it, you gave away all your trust and money and by extension all your fears to this man. Granted it may not be your business to understand how money works and how it flows, but you have to remember at the end of the day despite all the cute furniture you can buy, plastic surgery you can have and all the bons bons you can eat you still live in the wild wild west. After all isn’t this why you are still here?
Julius Caesar once said ‘one should never confuse the face of civility for actual civility. That would be too improper and naïve.’ Just because there are no more spears and cannons flying don’t assume that slavery, prejudice, class system and downright exploitation and preposterous valuations(witness the debacle on Wall street) are here on your very door step. What Paris Hilton is wearing or doing that day should never let you take your eye off the ball even if Miss Hilton shakes a mean booty.
Even F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘Great Gatsby’ was playing at a scam. He was the archetypical self made literary hero that had it all but didn’t really have it all. All he could do was look over the green Hampton bays and wish for the light that he saw to be real. Yet in the end it too was built on ill gotten or rather unknown nefarious ways. The man came so close, but his love interest quickly resorted back to her proper brutal clan. Romance is one thing, but diamond necklaces are another. By the time Gatsby is shot dead the whole game is over, and all his fans and users are forced to move on. But where, where are we to move on in such a vast wild continent?
