November 7, 2005

School for Scoundrels

Over the weekend the White House announced that, due to recent lapses, the entire White House staff will have to attend an ethics refresher course. Well, that's the way they described it. But NFR has obtained the actual text of the presentation:



To: All
From: The Boss

Subject: Mandatory Refresher Course

It has come to my attention that some of youse guys have gotten sloppy. I am – distressed. Already four of our best people are in hot water:

* Tom The Hammer, busted for money laundering,
* Bill The Doctor, under investigation for his stock deals
* Scooter Lou, indicted for perjury.
* Karl The Turd Blossom, under federal investigation.

People, this kinda sloppiness has gotta stop. It threatens to unravel our whole thing and send five years of hard work right down the terlet. That's why I called you all together today. I want to review review the progress Our Thing has made over the past five years as a way to point out why youse gotta get back on the program. Any further sloppiness threatens all these gains:

Our Gun Rackets:
The "things that go bang" racket has never been better. Special credit goes to our consigliere Dick The Pacemaker for turning that lemon, the 9/11 attacks, into gallons upon gallons of lemonade. Those stupid Arabs provided Dick and me a gift that just keeps giving. Where everyone else only saw death and rubble, Dicky saw the biggest opportunity since prohibition. He took that single event and leveraged it into two – count-em TWO -- full-scale wars. Need I tell you that fire arms sales have gone right off the chart? And, we have not ignored the local markets either. Here at home we just got a law passed that makes it impossible to sue our friends in the gun business – even if their product is actually used for what it's meant to be used for. (Oh man, I bet the tobacco folks wish now they'd played ball with us. With enough "support" from them we could have gotten tobacco companies the same deal. But, oh no, they took the sissy way out.) Additional Reading

Our Drug Rackets:
We are close to shutting down pharmaceutical shipments from competing sources, like Canada, that threatened profit margins here. We are still working on that, But we hit a home run a couple of years ago with that friggin Medicare reform bill. That little job shows what we can accomplish when you all follow the rules and don't get sloppy. All we had to do was get someone to slip one tiny sentence into the bill prohibiting the government from negotiating the price of drugs with our suppliers. Now it's pay up or die. That's our kinda business environment, people. And it's wasn't even complicated. It's was just a matter of stuffing enough money into the right envelopes at the right time. If you can't do that right, what can you do? Additional Reading


Our Health Care Rackets:
This is another area where we have made progress in spite of the wreckage our earlier efforts created. We've been able to tighten the screws on health care costs at rates that would make credit card companies blush, and still defeat any move towards a cheaper and more efficient single-payer health insurance system. Our health insurance rackets remain largely unregulated allowing us to collect higher and higher premiums from people unlikely to need medical care while dumping the actual sickos on the feds. It's the perfect racket. Americans now pay more for health care than any people on earth while getting less for their money than those in countries with single-payer or national health insurance. HMO's, rest homes, PPOs, we are into all of them now. And the best is yet to come. Aging Baby Boomers represent the Mother Lode, so people, we can't afford to blow it now! Additional Reading


Our Jobs Rackets:
We have all but destroyed organized labor, and without even having to break a single leg or arm. All we had to do was get worker-friendly sounding bills like "Right to Work," laws passed. Then we gave workers a choice; accept less in pay and benefits or we ship your job to Timbuktu. So far the we have trimmed about 10 grand a year from the average family income. And, do I need to tell you that that 10 grand rattles right down to the bottom line? When unions try to fight back we just slip a few bucks to the right politicians and they pass laws that make it harder for unions to slip a few bucks to the same politicians. Once again people – the rule is NO competition. It's Our Thing or it's nothing. Additional Reading

Our Gasoline Rackets:
The days when we had to just live off skimming gasoline taxes alone, are over. We have made enormous progress in this area in just the last year. Once again, I have to hand it to Dicky. The guy can spot a gem in ton of cow manure from a mile away. Who but Dicky would have figured out how to turn a couple of storms into a billions in profits? Huh? Whata guy. The trick now is to keep this thing going by making sure supplies stay tight. That means coming up with excuses why we can't refine more gasoline. We gotta keep the supply tight to keep the price high. Is that simple enough for you folks? Or do I have to draw you a friggin picture? But you gotta watch what the hell you say in public. No gloating! And for Christsake dress down. I don't want some goody two-shoe member of congress pointing that while old folks can't afford to heat their homes, youse guys are walking around in $2000 Aramni suits. Additional Reading

Our Tax Rackets:
What do we gain if all the above rackets produce billions in revenue if a hunk of it ends up in the federal treasury? No good. Taxes just puts us in an awkward position. We either have to cough up the money or cheat. And remember, Big Al didn't end up in the slammer for his rackets, but for tax evasion. It's here that we have probably achieved our most spectacular success. Over the past five years we have convinced the feds to cut the taxes our taxes by almost two TRILLION smackaroes. We are rolling in extra dough. Sweet, huh? But our work is not done. We still can't pass our stash to our kids when we die without cutting the feds in on the deal. We have some of our best people working on this problem. The first phase of that operation is complete. They have successfully renamed the problem. It's no longer the "Inheritance Tax," but the "Death Tax." Friggin brilliant! Who would want to tax death? No one – we hope. Additional Reading

So people, I hope you now understand why it's so important you review the rules and get back on the program. Scooter Lou and Turd Blossom Karl screwed up and put us on the defensive. They better be the last.

Class dismissed.

Hey, and be careful out there. No more slip ups.