Debt And Dastardly Deeds

To Carisma, and lunch with my good friend Matilda Hatt. I arrived early, ordered a serious Grey Goose on the rocks, and began looking forward to the best ravioli in town. (My cook, Henri, disagrees, stating that the chef at Carisma has no understanding of how to use oregano. I stay out of such arguments; the ravioli remains superb.)

Matilda entered, distraught, plunked herself down, tried to smooth some wrinkles in her pant suit, saw my drink, and said "I'll have one of those too. Or maybe four. And you had to wear Givenchy, didn't you? But the skirt's too short."

I ignored this last bit. Tilly has no understanding of dress."Tilly, what on earth's the matter? You look worse than you did when you climbed out of that sewer in Milan sporting a very bloody nose."

"Just wait a bit," she said. Our waiter arrived quickly, and soon Tilly was similarly armed with Grey Goose. "Now, Simone, just listen."

What was concerning Tilly was the current debt crisis in the U.S.A., and the fact that the CIA was facing drastic cuts. What really irritated her was that her own finances were in good shape, yet she and other of her colleagues faced being either let go or severely downgraded for causes not their own. "Just how the hell did this happen?" she asked, fury in her voice. Then, to a passing waiter, "Yes, I'll have another."

"How it happened," I began, "was ignoring the advice proffered by Mr. Micawber in Dickens' David Copperfield."

"What are you talking about?"

"Hear me out, it's really quite simple. To wit, 'Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.' The U.S. is now experiencing misery. Of course, so is Greece, Portugal, Spain and quite likely Italy. All because of that twenty pound ought and six."

"It can't be that simple."

"Granted. A person is not a country, and a little debt carried by a country helps the bond market along. That said, if the politicians in those countries had paid more attention to old Micawber's advice, a lot of the mess could have been avoided. But things intervened."

"What things?" I had Tilly's attention now.

Well, concerning the U.S., quite a number. The repeal of Glass-Steagall, the rise of arcane derivitives, a mis-use of VAR, the sub-prime mortgage mess and the arcane CDO's that followed, to say nothing of an extremely expensive and totally unnecessary war in Iraq. Oh, and at a time when you would expect revenue mechanisms to be front and centre to pay for all this, tax breaks were given to high income earners who least needed them."

Tilly just stared at me. Then taking a healthy swallow of her drink, said "I understood the Dickens stuff, but not the other."

"It's OK, Tilly. Neither did the politicians or the financiers. But I have hope. Barack Obama does understand the issue, although he faces an uphill battle with certain members of Congress who insist upon having a tea party and putting ideology before common sense."

And for the first time since she had sat down, a small smile appeared on Tilly's face. "So it will be all right then?"

I was quick to respond. "I didn't say that. In fact, things will likely get worse before they get better -- the debt hole is a deep one, and even Obama might not be able to make progress. After all, as Schiller tells us, 'Mit der Dummheit kampfen Gotter selbst vergebens.'"

"What the fu --"

"Sorry." Tilly was fluent in Arabic, Farsi, and Pushtu, but German not so much. "What Schiller is saying is 'With stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain.'"


"I want another drink," said Tilly