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So, Hugo, you make no secret of your contempt for the losers and would use the military against them, despite you clearly being reliant on them, or at least some of them, to power your drive for power. Of course, you and the rest of We The People are surprisingly reliant on them whenever times are bad.
I’m not sure where you’re going with this, Troy, so come on, spit it out.
What’s your opinion on nationalization?
Ah, I see, very good. Well, obviously nationalization is an appalling act of theft by sovereign governments to acquire profitable companies and steal the profits from the shareholders who helped to grow the companies, resulting in the government grinding the companies down through wasteful mismanagement and rendering the companies worthless.
Not the most original response, but about what I’d expect from a billionaire capitalist who’s been declared bankrupt almost as many times as he’s been married. The problem with that answer, of course, is it’s simply not true. Not in the case of the nation of Everything, anyway.
I know where you’re going with this, Troy, and it’s not nationalization.
So the occasions when the government of Everything has bailed out huge companies that have been taken to the brink of bankruptcy by their management don’t count as nationalization? Even though the companies and their liabilities have been taken over by the government, putting the taxpayers of Everything on the hook for the unbelievable losses that were engineered by greedy and incompetent capitalists. Fortunately, experience tells us that government ownership turns these businesses around and returns them to profitability. You capitalists may not use the word nationalization, but that’s exactly what these situations have been. Except, for some inexplicable reason, after achieving profitability, they’re returned to private ownership until the next mega-scale cock-up.
Well, it’s not nationalization, so there.
So, I’m just hallucinating then? What a shame society can’t hallucinate nationalized healthcare and nationalized utility companies. We shouldn’t be allowing We The People to profit from essential services. Things like healthcare, water and power should be basic human rights. It’s simply wrong that anyone should be able to profit from basic human rights.
Without allowing profit, there’s no incentive for providers to do their best. Governments simply can’t run essential businesses as well as privately owned businesses.
Seriously, so government can run huge failing companies more efficiently than the capitalist fools who drive them to the brink, but can’t be trusted to run our country’s essential services more efficiently. What about Flantagulous Wardrobe at Crumple. Along with the Dotardian multi-national, Flappycoach, Crumple is the only other large commercial aircraft manufacturer in the world. Between them, their duopoly has orders for more than 15,000 airliners. Crumple literally couldn’t be any closer to being a monopoly without being a monopoly. It should be the easiest business in the world to run. I could literally train a monkey to run Crumple profitably. Its basic office would have a desk with a green button, a blue button and a red button.
Monkey come in.
Monkey sit at desk.
Monkey press green button.
Crumple workers build plane.
Monkey get banana.
Monkey press blue button.
Crumple workers sell plane.
Monkey get banana.
Monkey not press red button.
Crumple plane not fall from sky.
Monkey get banana.
It really is that simple, yet Flantagulous Wardrobe pitched Crumple into near disaster. He nose-dived their stock price, set their bonds on a journey to near junk status and still received a payoff of more than 60 million spondoolicks. The company is still recovering from the crashes that cost hundreds of innocent lives when the poorly conceived fuel-saving algorithm repeatedly shut off engines mid-flight to maximize fuel efficiency. And none of the families of those killed on his watch received anything near to 60 million spondoolicks in compensation.
I think you’re being a bit unfair there, Troy, Wardrobe’s a great businessman and a great leader who was let down by others.
Let down by others who he led. The reality is that businesses are very similar to sports teams. Even at the top teams, most of the players are just good enough, with only a few being truly outstanding. And the same applies to the coaches and managers of those sides, with most being good enough not to screw it up in a big way, but with only a few being truly outstanding. It seems that most big business leaders get paid an outrageous amount of money for making big short-term profits for shareholders who don’t care about what happens in the long-term. It would actually be harder to train a monkey to screw it up.
Oh, yes, the monkeys, can you really train monkeys to run big businesses profitably, Troy? This is flabbergasting news, why on earth are we wasting our time on politics?
No, Hugo, I was just trying to make a point. While I’m pretty sure I could train a monkey to run Crumple, I’ve never tried doing something like that.
Blast, back to politics it is then. I guess we could test out some monkeys on running a smaller government and if that works out, hire them out to big businesses.
Sorry, did I catch you suggesting smaller government?
Of course, big government is hugely inefficient and wasteful.
But a government is no different to a company or corporation. A government has employees, like a company. And a government provides products and services, like a company. And a government has customers, the citizens, like a company. To all intents and purposes, they’re the same things. Put simply, a government is a publicly owned company with a diverse operating portfolio. Though governments don’t have to make a profit, which makes their job a bit easier. So, how come the wealthy insist that big government is inefficient and wasteful? Yet they don’t say the same about big businesses. On the contrary, they praise big businesses for being more efficient and less wasteful, claiming they push down prices for their customers.
You’re just confused, Troy. Big government wastes massive amounts of taxpayers’ money. We should cut out all that waste and save the voters loads of cash.
Come now, Hugo, that’s not why you really hate big government. You hate big government because it works in the interests of the majority of Everythingers. It offers them things that the wealthy don’t need and don’t want to pay for. And you don’t want a government that protects the people from big businesses. And you absolutely don’t want government to pay for a tax agency to investigate and punish you for your tax evasion. So you say you support small government so that everyone can decide how to spend their own money, because we all spend our own money more wisely than anonymous civil servants ever will. The reality is that you and the rest of We The People want small government because it leaves individuals to fend for themselves. Individuals have to make their own decisions and find their own suppliers. It makes it easier for you and your kind to profit excessively from individuals. Big government brings everyone together and we both know there’s safety in numbers. That’s why diabetics in Everything have to pay up to 10 times more for their insulin than diabetics in Spot. Spot’s government supplies insulin to their 232,000 diabetics and so they’re able to negotiate a much more competitive price. In Everything, our 1.8 million diabetics have to buy their insulin individually, which explains why they pay so much more. And that’s just one example, it applies across the board to drugs and the losers lack protection from government in other services too.
I’d argue that’s a rather subjective take on the situation. However you look at it, though, Everythingers enjoy an exceptional quality of life in every regard.
Oh, come on, Hugo, that simply isn’t the reality for most Everythingers. Our society has become deeply unfair. Some 16 million Everythingers live below the poverty line, even as they contribute to our society. Why not just give them their fair share?
Their fair share? They’ve already got their fair share. They’re not the ones leading our society and building and running the successful companies that make Everything great. Anyway, thanks to your People’s Party, the national debt has ballooned to 37 trillion spondoolicks. You want to give them more, but how do we afford it?
The richest 10% of Everythingers own 112 trillion spondoolicks between them. They could pay off the whole national debt and still keep more than two thirds of their wealth. It’s not like they’re going to starve or have to make huge sacrifices to sort out our country’s financial situation. Sure, they may have to take one less luxury overseas holiday each year or change their three cars every other year instead of every year or eat out just four times a week instead of six. But still, that doesn’t sound like too harsh an existence to me. Yet you want to become First-Best-Guy and cut even more social spending so you can give even more money to the wealthy. Why? They don’t need it.
It’s not a question of need. It’s not even a question of them deserving it, though they do because they earned it.
Earned it!? Don’t get me onto that subject.
Trust me, Troy, I’ll try not to, though I don’t fancy my chances. Regardless, when it comes to giving more wealth to the wealthiest, it’s a question of ability. The simple reality is that the losers let us do it. We don’t hide our immense wealth and privilege from the losers, it’s right there in plain sight. And the losers celebrate us for it. When another fancy-pants car maker releases another three million spondoolicks limited edition hypercar, they don’t exclaim that it’s obscene that such things are being bought by the wealthy when they’re working 50-hour weeks and still struggling to get from pay check to pay check. No, they tune into their favorite streaming platform and watch three fat old fudgers moan about the rise of low emissions zones, which mean they won’t be able to drive this new hypercar through downtown at 200mph because it’ll be too polluting. And when an exclusive fashion house starts selling a new handbag for what the average Everythinger earns in a year, do they contact their representative to condemn the social inequality? Of course not, they’re straight onto Smokestack to see which of their favorite celebrities and influencers have been lucky enough to get one of the new bags already.
So it’s their fault then, but why do you care so much about gaining more and more wealth when you already have more than you could ever spend?
It’s not about wealth, Troy, it’s about status, about being better than our neighbors. Money is nothing more than a way of keeping score, like kids using matchsticks in a game of blackjack. If I’ve got more money than you, that obviously means that I’m better than you. I want to be better than you, but more than that, I want to be better than everyone…wait…no, actually that’s not quite right. I want to be the best. I want to be the greatest human ever. And I want everybody to know I’m the smartest, funniest, sexiest, most powerful and most terrifying human being that the universe…no, Hugo, concentrate…that God ever created. When the losers and the rest of We The People kneel before their Lord, their King, I want them to tremble in the knowledge that I and I alone hold the power of life and death over them. All of you must worship me.
Well, I think it’s absolutely fantastic that you’ve set yourself such clearly defined and ambitious life goals, Hugo. Though I can see it must make gift shopping awkward when it’s your birthday or Christmas.
Not at all, Troy, just last Christmas my favorite niece, Frou-Frou Brazilian-Landing-Strip, gifted me a quite delightful toweling bath robe. On the back it has this rather striking print of a giant demonic dragon squishing ugly little people to pulp in its powerful taloned feet and blowing fire at hundreds of plaid people who are fleeing in panic. The dragon’s face is mine. It looks fantastic and the toweling feels super soft on the skin, though the static plays havoc with my elaborate comb-over. So, don’t worry, Troy, I trust that you’ll never have any trouble finding a way to show me how important I am to you.
Some matching slippers, perhaps?
Or your guaranteed, unquestioning and unwavering loyalty for all time, perhaps?
And can all Everythingers expect such generous treatment from you if they guarantee you their loyalty?
We have to be pragmatic, Troy. It can be tempting to promise the world to everyone, but we have to work within the constraints of reality.
Ah, those pesky constraints of reality. I guess that’s why during the last financial crisis, the government eagerly made cuts to public spending so they could bail out the bankers who caused the crisis with their reckless gambling, using their customers’ money to generate huge wealth for themselves, while creating nothing of value for our society. Yet when the poorest can’t afford healthcare or need to rely on the charity of food banks to feed themselves and their families, the government won’t tax the richest to bail them out?
You know what, Troy, sometimes I wonder if I’ve misjudged you? How simplistic and naive can you be? The population of Everything is 340 million people, but only 472,943 work in investment banking and, of course, only a few of those got bailed out. In fact lots of them lost their jobs. So let’s say that only 5% really benefited, which is probably high, but that gives us about 23,648 bankers helped out financially. Now, do you have any idea how much dinner at Percy’s costs?
Percy’s? Who’s Percy?
Really? Percy’s is perhaps the finest dining experience in the Barrier district, all the top bankers dine there. Here’s the thing, Troy, dinner is going to cost 1,000 spondoolicks and they’re going to need something like a 4156 Haut Brion to wash it down, which is 3,200 spondoolicks a bottle. And they’re going to have to tip the poor waiting staff, which brings us to a grand total of 4,201 spondoolicks. Multiply that by 23,648 investment bankers and it comes to just 99,345,248 spondoolicks. Less than 100 million spondoolicks, so eminently affordable. But are you seriously suggesting that the government should recklessly use their budget to feed all 340 million Everythingers? Do the math, Troy, that’s more than 1,428 trillion spondoolicks. That’s more than 43 times Everything’s entire national debt. It’s a plainly ridiculous and fantastical idea. As much as we might want to help the poor people eat, it simply isn’t affordable, is it? That’s why the government is only able to help out the bankers, because that is affordable. Surely it’s better to do something, no matter how small it may be, rather than doing absolutely nothing at all, don’t you think?
Well, yes, Hugo, when you explain it like that, it actually does make perfect sense.
Aww, bless him. I hate myself for this, but for a moment there I found myself rather warming to Troy.
We’ve got a little Bichon Maltese with hydrocephalus, so about 90% of his brain is just fluid, instead of, well, brain. He’s so awfully sweet. Mrs Forclift describes him as a forever-puppy.
Anyway, the more I see of Troy, the more I find myself seeing him as a forever-puppy, too. Oops, sorry, Hugo’s still going.
Of course it does. The terrible reality is that socialism just isn’t affordable for everyone.
Hang on, it’s terrible that socialism isn’t affordable?
Good grief, did I just say that out loud?
So, are you a closet socialist, Hugo?
I should wash your mouth out with soap, you sick perv. I’m a capitalist, through and through. Here’s the thing, though, Troy, it’s time to share one of We The People’s dirty little secrets. We The People love socialism just as much as the losers, but only when it’s benefiting us. Socialism’s a bit like free speech. We all love free speech till someone says something we don’t like. And everybody loves socialism when they’re receiving someone else’s money, but they hate it when it’s their money going to someone else.
Even when they’ve got more money than they’ll ever need?
Especially when we’ve got more money than we’ll ever need.