forgetting stupidity

FORGETTING STUPIDITY
Beunaise thielles quiavant des sous peur fazir oublier zeu sottise. Very happy are those who have enough silver coin to forget their stupidity. Here at Bison Enterprises we have decided to go global and introduce a bit of foreign spice to our hatred and insults. I believe the above is in old French, or at least a dialect of French. I'm reading a biography of Champlain, who I never knew about but was a very cool dude. He had the ear of the king, advocated religious tolerance and felt that the Indians were not interior but merely different. He also wanted to colonize North America for the glory of France and did good job by all accounts. The above quote is one of those folk sayings from his region of birth. I might be whistling Dixie here, but I take it to mean the rich can act stupid and get away with it. Their wealth insulates them from the consequences of doing stupid stuff.
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How many generations has the First World acted under this assumption? I'm sure that every Empire throughout history has done the same thing. The wealthy are insulated from reality and blindly lurch about, their head so far up their butt they can't see any danger. The poor starving and discontented, why, let them eat cake. Our soil depleted, well, I must make the servant payroll this quarter so plant another crop anyway. Entire countries wealth transferred to the investment banker CEO's bonus check. Genocide to clear the way for resource extraction. As soon as the American Indians were out of the way we took over exploiting Africa and South America. Same old crap, different century. And as bad as they were, the bulk of our population wants to emulate them. Let's be rich so we can escape from reality. Part of the escape was forgetting that there is only so much wealth to go around and only so many folks could live the good life.
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It is one thing when everyone is fighting desperately for a position on the life raft. That is understandable. Rwandan genocide wasn't religious or racial strife so much as overpopulation meeting shrinking food supplies ( but don't think it can ever happen here, oh no! ). But everyone has been fighting for a shrinking pie of riches. They all wanted to be rich. The few smart ones at the top play on this fact, as witnessed by real estate and stock market bubbles. But the masses keep putting real wealth into inflated paper assets. Oh, golly, my 401(k) just lost half its value but they said to invest for the long term so I'll just keep putting money in there even though inflation alone is going to wipe it out, never mind future market crashes. I'm not poking fun at those that can gamble with Monopoly money. Once your future and security are assured, you can play with all that mad money. But those that gamble with their retirement and the roof over their heads are playing a chumps hand around a card shark table.
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Money is a tool. It can buy security and luxury, it isn't the same as what you buy. It is worthless in and of itself. But, the "rich" don't give a care what I say, so they can continue on in their Happy Reality. I'm sure that you, frugal worker bees that you are, know all this. What can I say? It was a go-to-the-bank-day and I didn't have a lot of time to astound you today. If nothing else you learned a French folk saying. Buy my crap www.bisonpress.com
And check out www.dirtcheapdirt.blogspot.com . Today had some really good deals.
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