Health & Fitness
Bureaucrats, Agents, and Other Spenders Follow their Leader
It should be no surprise that those in government arrogantly blow through your cash faster than you do, because they're just following their boss's lead.
How is it that Secret Service agents, you know the ones that are supposed to be intelligent and of highly unquestionable ethical and moral character, are able to acquire prostitutes in advance of the president, and think they could get away with it? OK, let's see some hands on this next question: who thinks this isn't the first time they sought this sort of comfort while serving this administration? Me, too.
To me, the more interesting part is how they got busted. Apparently, one of the agents reconsidered the cost of the service rendered and decided to change the terms of the transaction by paying only a small percentage of the bill: billed $800, paid $30. Understandably, the purveyor of the goods was offended and angry, and she made it known to everyone who would listen, including the police and press.
While violating the contract of the transaction is deplorable, the agent's instincts were at least in the right place with regards to frugality, especially when considering that while the agent was figuring out how to spend his spare time, out of one of the other wretched rooms of Leviathan's brothel popped the head of a commissioner at the General Services Administration, sipping wine in a hot tub, spending your cash. Apparently, the GSA, a government department whose main purpose is to help government acquire services and products at bulk rate discounts, is bulk flushing hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, in needless conference fees, ribbon cutting ceremonies, and other klatsch nonsense that the boss itches to spend your money on. I'm in full agreement with what has been said elsewhere that we need the agent that sought the deep discount from the prostitute to be in charge of the GSA. I haven't tried to procure talents of a prostitute, but I imagine that stiffing her, in the financial sense, requires a real audacity that is not common. And this was furnished by the agent after he felt he got ripped off. Now, that's the kind of deal maker we need on our side when negotiating into whose clutches we place the handle that lets loose our cash.
The spigot of "boatloads of federal money", as the freshly seated Justice refers to the Treasury dispensations of our money, seems to be stuck in the full bore firehose setting. And it's sending bureaucrats, Secret Service agents, other officials (and hopefully a president) tumbling embarrassingly over the visible terrain of the present with scandal after scandal, and into disgraced terrain of the past: the GSA scandal, Secret Service scandal, Solyndra scandal, and Blythe program scandal. And it's still gushing. Just this morning there were rumors of a Student Loan bailout --great, a scandal in waiting! The sad part is that the majority of the Suma Cum Laughter grads won't even realize they'll have to pay for the loans with or without the bailout. It's just a matter of whether they'll send the interest payment to the Chinese or not.
Our country is the brokest country in the history of the world, and what makes it even more amazing is the fact that those with their hands on the spigot are completely oblivious to it--as well as a good portion of our fellows citizens--or at least act like they are. I think there's a pervading belief in the minds of the majority too lazy to think about it that everything will be OK once we locate the money from wherever it's hidden. The problem is that there is no such money hidden. Someone commented on a blog of mine a few weeks back arguing that the debt needs to be addressed by taxing people. The troubling part of that statement is that approach is now anachronistic. We can't. We can tax everybody everything and we will still be broke. That time has passed already.
The spendthrift glut by those in government we all just witnessed is not directly linked to explicit actions by the Spender in Chief, but I believe it's linked indirectly by the tone and aloofness of his majesty. I mean if a boss blows a half a billion dollars (or a boatload, again in Kagen parlance) on questionable investment after questionable investment, would you really be surprised that his minions would not worry themselves too much about dropping a couple hundred grand on unnecessary expenditures, including clowns, magicians, prostitutes, and a nice hot tub romance with the misses? Probably not. Once we get the hidden money we'll be ok, right? So, it's no big deal.
Behavior enabled by a culture is defined at the top. Whether the leader is a CEO setting the tone for a company, or a president that's rallying the citizens when the country is in trouble, the leader at the top establishes the culture by example. And our president--you know, who is the smartest man ever elected president, better looking than Kennedy, more intellectual than Jefferson and Madison combined, more capable than Washington with ability to do any job necessary, and if you don't believe me, just ask him (p. 66)-- is the spendiest spender the world has ever known and doesn't concern himself one iota about unleashing hydrants of your money to flood the lavish pools of his agenda. He has set an example of an aloof technocrat, never too busy to spend your money and spread the government gospel about its wondrous abilities to solve all problems, but always too busy to concern himself with the cost and the details of his Rube Goldbergian legislation to ensure it actually functions, which is much different than the welcomed task of scouting vacation spots, he'll actually do that job. It should be no surprise that those in government arrogantly blow through your cash faster than you do, because they're just following their boss's lead.
