A Yiddish proverb that feels distinctly appropriate regarding the Short-Fingered Vulgarianâs âbusiness skillâ:
×ער ק×֡ר×ער ×××× ×××ף ××˘× ×ע×× ××× ×Öˇ ××× × ××××¤Öż× ××××âŤ.âŹ
Der karger ligt af dem gelt vi a hunt afn beyn.
A miser guards his money like a dog guards its bone.
Heâll shake it off as âLook. When you have a lot of money, and I have a lot of money believe me, people â and they do this â they come after you. They donât go after people with no money.â
Look, itâs not Trumpâs fault if his so-called âworkersâ planned to get paid. Thatâs on them. And Trump wanted to pay them, but Mexicans raped all the paychecks, and then China ate them for lunch because of all those bad trade deals while Democrat Disrupters egged them on.
Besides, now Trump will do it for America instead of for himself! With Trump in the White House, youâll have so much not getting paid your head will spin!*
- Trump 2016!
Hmm. Considering how much the US is in debt, maybe we need someone familiar with wiggling out or paying. Or paying pennies on the dollar what is owed.
This is how he plans to get Mexico to pay for the wall â heâll contract it out to them, then declare it unsatisfactory, and refuse to pay for it.
And if it sends the USâs credit rating into a tailspin and punts us into another recession when all of those debts get called in, and results in a new era when the US dollar no longer is trusted as legal tender abroad, well, thatâs okay, right? Because âAmerican Exceptionalismâ.
âLook at my African-American over here. He works for me. He works hard every day. He doesnât expect to get paid. Isnât he amazing! If we had lots more like him, we could make this country great again. Whatâs wrong with all these whiners?â
Why settle for the usual âFuck you; Iâve got mine!â when you could have âFuck you, Iâve got yours!â?
Itâs this kind of willingness to go the extra mile that helped Trump crush his more conventionally evil challengers.
Yeah, thatâs his actual plan, as he has indicated. Problem is itâs just a teensy bit unconstitutional, not to mention disastrous.
Iâm so happy that this story seems to have legs and is getting widely reported. The narrative needs to change from âTrump is a masterful businessman and negotiatorâ to âTrump uses his monetary advantage and the threat of litigation to screw the people he has hired out of what is rightfully owed to themâ.
Every contractor (myself included) has dealt with a person like this. They withhold some amount of the final payment based on phony claims of substandard work, and force the contractor to either spend time and money in court, or accept a lesser amount than what is owed to avoid the hassle and cost. If you are the kind of asshole who can use this tactic simply as a way to transfer money that you rightfully owe to someone else into your own pocket, you deserve to be held up to public ridicule for it.
Generally speaking the US debt doesnât mean social security, but what if it did? What if that was somehow possible to wiggle out of social security? Wouldnât that just end up telling poor elderly people that too bad, we just donât want to pay them to be alive any longer? We want to wiggle out of it, sorry if that means you starve on the street.
The main thing keeping a âsoylent greyâ retirement plan off the table isnât legal constraints; but the fact that old people are more reliable voters; and even old people who allegedly dislike âbig governmentâ are substantially in favor of social security.
The more overtly plutocratic wing is more or less constantly trying to sell yet another plan to replace social security with Glorious Free Market Investments that the financial services industry can be paid to manage; but itâs an uphill battle every time.
Thatâs why the predominant talking point for social security is âItâs doomed and going to collapse! We have no choice but to abandon ship and do something else!â which is markedly unlike the rhetoric âwasteâ, âinefficiencyâ, âentitlement programsâ and good old welfare queens that other sorts of government spending attracts.
If you had the necessary political support, you could make it legal in short order; but at least for now nobody does.
Which is exactly what the republican party would love to accomplish. Theyâve been trying to figure out HOW to make that happen since social security was implemented. One of the reasons they hate it so much is that it works. It just plain works. This makes them seethe in their black little hearts.
Litigants = Swing Voters
I am reminded of those who are perfectly happy to have a crooked person doing their finances because theyâre under the illusion that heâll only be cheating other people on their behalf. The first part of a con is often convincing the victim that they are a co-conspirator rather than a victim.
Is that Klingon?
No, youâre thinking of Shakespeare.
Interest owed on savings bonds? Wiggle out of that?
How can you do that without collapsing the international economic system?
Right! To be or not to be. So much better in the original Klingon.
