There Is a Time...

When I was a child, I longed to be rich,but we were poor. My father went to look for work with holes in his pants, while I sat on the front stoop and planned a future. I would have a limousine with a chauffeur. I would buy a house on the Riviera (wherever that was), and a house in the mountains and a house at the beach. I would adopt four thousand babies that nobody wanted, and we would all drink champagne (whatever that was) on their birthdays, and my jewels would weigh me down to the point where I had to give several of them away.

For some reason, it didn't work out, but now that I'm grown up, and reading about the problems of rich people, I realize I've been fortunate.

Take the case of Bernard Madoff who cost his friends so much money nobody has yet counted it all. He admitted to running a 50 billion dollar Ponzi scam, but he's unhappy because he's being forced to stay in his luxurious apartment with his wife. He can't even go out and take a walk. According to the New York Post, "Bernie Madoff is whining to anyone who'll listen that he's being held captive in his penthouse...'I'm a prisoner in my own house!' Madoff fumed. 'I can't go anywhere. I'm stuck here all day!'" If some run of the mill arrested person can't make bail, he is sent directly to a holding cell, and maybe after that to a jail where he can meet other inmates and exercise in the yard every day. Not Bernie. For the time being, he has to stay home.

There are other kinds of suffering rich people, like the ones who are interested in politics, but got caught not paying their taxes, so they can't be in the President's cabinet, and sing the Star Spangled Banner at parties.

And what about rich people like those three automobile magnates who flew to Washington to beg for billions of taxpayers' money? They flew in three separate private planes. Those poor souls were the subject of derision, and rich guys don't like that.

And what about John Thain, the sweetheart of Merrill Lynch, who spent so much fixing up his office that he probably could have bought a four storey building with the cash? Mr. Thain, who only wanted an office he could be proud of, is being persecuted by irritable questions. From government officials.

And what about that other guy who admitted it was probably an awful thing to take a huge bonus while the company he worked for was going down the drain. Awful. But, he said, "I'm not giving it back." He is probably suffering from being declared irresponsible and greedy-- President Obama called Wall Street bankers "shameful for handing themselves nearly $20 billion dollars in bonuses as the economy was deteriorating"-- and for all I know, that bonus guy could get thrown out of his country club.

It's almost biblical. "There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses. Now is not that time," said President Obama, about people known as Wall Street fat cats.

The way I see it, there is a time to steal, and a time to go to prison. If you're caught. There is also, according to the newspapers, a time for a lot of big shots to be eating lunch at McDonald's.