Gene Kerrigan wrote this in the Irish Independent on Sunday, July 29. (Croke Park is a sports stadium that seats 82,300.)

"Imagine a million dollars. Imagine it sitting on a seat in Croke Park. Imagine every seat in the stadium had a million dollars wrapped and stacked on it. Altogether, that would be upwards of $82bn. Now, imagine 12 Croke Parks, each seat similarly decorated with money. Now, you've got a trillion dollars.

Now multiply that by 21. We're looking at over 250 Croke Parks, each holding $82bn. Now, unless the batteries on my calculator are dodgy, we're looking at something approaching the amount of money hidden offshore by the super-rich in 2010.

The figure of $21trn is the conservative estimate (it could be up to $32trn) in a report published last week by the Tax Justice Network (TJN). The research for the report was done by the former chief economist of McKinsey, a consulting firm that's hired by major corporations and governments."

I didn't know this. Did you know this? There is plenty of money out there, isn't there? For things like malaria tents, clean water, low cost housing, FOOD!

What are these people who have hidden all this money made of? I think they are aliens. I admit, when I was a kid, I thought I might grow up to be Sister Saint Nonnie, but I became more realistic about the chances of that happening long before I discovered sex, alcohol, drugs and assorted behaviors that go along with the aforementioned. However, even if I abandoned my try for sainthood, I always shared my chocolate bars, metaphorically, with my friends.

My mother, and yours probably, used to tell us to eat our vegetables because there were starving children in China (or somewhere) that didn't have any. (Never mind the logic regarding the "how" of this Motherism-we all argued with Mom but had to eat our string beans anyway.) The point was that there were others, not just our best friends, who needed pieces of our chocolate bars. There were invisible others in the world who had less than we did and our mothers wanted us to think, or better, care about them.

In spite of my career choices, which have been sort of anti-wealth-accumulation (dancer, teacher, poet) I've earned enough to be taxed by the government and I've paid. On time, even. I figured that was how parts of life worked. I couldn't build a new school, but I could pay my property tax and so do my part. And so on and so on. I have also thought that , on the whole, most people have a heartstring that tugs the "fairness," principle that was lodged in their brains by assorted adults when they were very young. We feel a good firm yank, or the slightest possible tweak, but, if we're sane, we live somewhere in the land of people who try to have a "good conscience" in their behavior towards their fellows. We struggle with this, of course.

Damn. I keep saying "we." I've slowly, over a lifetime, been absorbing the truth that "we" is an idiotic pronoun to use when talking about values. Those guys with the 21 to 32 trillion in hidden accounts? They don't use that money to share, help, support, etc., etc. anyone.  They keep it for themselves. If you've already forgotten how much money is in these black money holes, re-read Gene Kerrigans's excellent imagery.

Dylan Thomas wrote,"I hold a beast, an angel and a madman in me, and my enquiry is as to their working, and my problem is their subjugation and victory, downthrow and upheaval, and my effort is their self-expression.” Thomas exhorted us to "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."  We need (there's that "we" again) to rage against these aliens, these super-rich, so that they cannot consume our light. They are bastards.

Link for Kerrigan article: http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/gene-kerrigan/gene-kerrigan-rich-hiding-250-croke-parks-of-cash-3182543.html



   

Nonnie and Drago Envision

Nonnie and Drago Envision

        

“It’s much too big, of course.” Nonnie said.

Drago carefully chewed his bite of pork loin (he’d  survived throat cancer and always ate mindfully.)

“What’s too big?” Drago asked after he swallowed.

“The United States. The budget. Who understands trillions, really? The 2010 census counted 310,300 million of us. No wonder we don’t agree. The 1790 census counted 3,929,214 for the Founding Fathers and their ilk to deal with.”  

Drago ate some sweet potato, then said, “That 1790 number would probably have excluded women and had some nefarious way to count slaves. No Native Americans, of course.”

“Oh, right, but look, rounding off today’s population to 4 million, give or take, we’d come out with 77 ½ countries.”

“You’re just carrying these figures around in your head?”

“Well, no. They’re in my pocket. I’ve been thinking about this-doing some figuring. I’m fed up with having to share my country with so many fidiots.”

“What were fidiots, again?”

“Fucking idiots, but I know you’d rather we didn’t swear.”

“Doesn’t work for us, dear. Or maybe it’s a ‘what would Mother say?’ thing. So, what do you have in mind, actually?”

“De-uniting. Regrouping. Starting over in re-sorted ballparks.

Like, for instance, there could be a little country we could live in where education, healthcare, and military spending (not much, because we wouldn’t need it because we’d be in a little country) would get sensible support. Still a democracy and all, but billionaires would be frowned upon. Ostracized, even.” Nonnie dipped her last piece of pork into her applesauce. She always finished meals first. “No. Wait. I know. We could still have capitalism, but after an individual’s income reaches say, a couple of million, they’d have to stop accumulating and start giving. Details could be worked out by smart humanitarians and all, but there certainly wouldn’t be any need to put the mentally ill out on the streets, for example. It’d be great!

And, uh, the trickle-down types could live in one of the 77 ½ countries that just love billionaires! See how that works out for them.”

Drago, who was feeding Blossom bits from his plate by now, and who always gave his sister’s ideas a thoughtful hearing, said, “All these places would have to have names. There should probably be a rule that no one could pick ‘The United States of America,’ by the way. Nonnie, there are a lot of details to be ironed out.”

“Names, yeah, those might be tough.”

“Anything good on TV tonight?”

“Oh, you know. Doctors, crime scenes, housewives. Probably some vampires. Want to watch vampires?”