I’m guessing Tony Soprano would have a very special bailout plan for Wall Street, and I’m pretty sure I’d vote for it.
It’s the same plan that would be offered by Don Vito, Bugsy Segal, Al Capone and, from what I’ve learned, my grandfather, the one who died when my dad was little.
I won’t be cute. Tony’s plan would involve violence. Not metaphorical, TV-style, ”Art of War,” talking violence either, but, rather, it would be the the kind of violence that would leave at least some managers of money markets and hedge funds and bonds and tranches and barbecues and whatever else it is they manage - and the pols who enable them - dead.
Oops. That’s impolite, huh. We don’t do talk like that in America, even when a relatively small pool of people steal a trillion or so dollars from a much larger group of people without their say-so.
Anyway, since we never, ever do anything like that in this culture, and since it’s purely theoretical mayhem I’m talking about, I’ll tell you what prompted me to ponder Tony’s answer to the current poli-finance crisis.
My beautiful kid.
She happened to inquire about her college fund on the exact day Wall Street and Congress was delivering a steaming, festering load of debt on her head.
What’s that? Not specific enough for you? Good point. My kids - and 80 million or so other Americans not yet old enough to vote - have been on the wrong end of the steaming load Wall Street/Washington deal for a few years now. The debt that’s piling up - often by the crowd that simultaneously enjoys a “support the troops” sticker AND a tax cut - will consume their lives in ways Tony and I can only imagine. Everything from retirement to environmental protection to a Quarter Pounder figures to become rarer in coming years - all without them having a say so in how their future money is spent.
I did what good fathers do; I told my daughter to ask her mother.
But I also happened to glance down at her homework.
She’s studying revolutionary America. The picture that stared up from her book was a painting of George Washington. He was on his horse. Leading (and financing) a military overthrow of his government, at least in part because he was outraged that they were squandering his money without his acquiesence.
And that wasn’t theory.
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I dread looking at the puny little college fund we started last year. It’s probably diminished to microscopic by now and there’s no telling if it will help my daughter get into college or just pay for her gas.