It Takes a Thief!

Put your hands behind your head and interlock your fingers.  No I ain't the cops, I just want your rings and your wallet and your watch and your fat gold chain.  Don't try nothin’ strange or I'm blowin’ out ya brains.  I rob from the rich so I can get rich.  I ain't got shit so I take what I can get!
I don't give a f*** about your pain and your grief.  You shouldn't of fell asleep, it takes a thief.
-Coolio
(To fully enjoy this story listen to “It Takes a Thief” by Coolio.)

I have found yet another trait that truly makes me different from most.  I ran head first into this quirk in my usual spot, a tavern.  I was drinking scotch one night when I overhead some girl, who was talking to my friends, lament that she couldn’t accept a great job in a new city.  The job started immediately and she didn’t know what to do with all of her stuff.  I thought she was kidding.  She wasn’t.

Eric Prae:  Seriously, you have that much stuff?  You couldn’t move because of your things?

Random Girl: (who was curiously getting less attractive every time she opened her mouth):  Yes, seriously!  You’re a fool if you want me to believe that YOU could just pick up and move.

Eric Prae:  Ummm, I could be packed in an hour.  Just throw my skivvies, volleyball and a blanket in my skateboard-sized pimpmobile and I would ride off into the sunset like Knight Rider.  It’s that easy.  I don’t own anything.  Literally nothing.

 Random Girl:  You own nothing?  How about your TV?

Eric Prae:  I’d leave it.

Random Girl:  Furniture?

Eric Prae:  Don’t own any.  But if I did I would leave that too.

Random Girl:  You don’t have a bed?

Eric Prae:  Ok, I have a really nice bedroom set that my mom bought me because she is awesome.  But I’d just sell it.  Things can be replaced.

Random Girl:  What about your roommate?

Eric Prae:  Fuck him.  I love him like a brother, but he’s a dude, he would understand.  Plus he probably wouldn’t notice I was gone until the power bill was overdue and his XBOX didn’t work.

Random Girl:  Wow, you really own nothing.  I have so much stuff.  That’s incredible.  I can’t believe it.

Eric Prae:  I can’t believe I bought you a drink!

 

                                                                                            ***

 

I hate possessions.  Hate, hate, hate, hate possessions.  Belongings mean nothing to me.  I look at the ownership of things as just a mass pile of crap that handcuffs me to lifeless objects.

I know that America was built on the dream and lifelong quest of purchasing bigger and better toys, but I think that is incredibly laughable and small minded.  While most people put their head down and work harder and harder to buy that uber- luxurious house and their third and forth posh automobile, I sit on the sidelines and enjoy a life of freedom.  The freedom from things.  You should try it, it’s very peaceful.

It is these things that make us sacrifice our real dreams.  It is the overpriced, ego inflating baggage that makes us ignore what is actually important.

But Eric, I need to be in vogue and step out of an Escalade when I roll up to the club!

Sweet, don’t forget your $100 bedazzled jeans.  Douche bag.

Worse than being just a tool, the need for things leads to mass greed, the same greed that made us all lose faith in our financial system.


If you weren’t keeping track, the government recently filed civil fraud charges against Goldman Sacs.  I did some research to see exactly what Goldman did to the poor dolts that invested in them, but there were so many reports of douchebagery that I wasn’t sure where to start.  Goldman allegedly “failed to disclose to investors that it was betting against subprime mortgage investments it pushed on clients. Essentially, according to the complaint, Goldman pushed a product designed to fail” (1).  They made a lot of money doing this.  To put it bluntly, they are thieves.

How did they do it?  According to the Huffington Post, Goldman got some dude named John Paulson to play “hedge fund manager” and he handpicked the worst possible assets in hopes that they would default.  He guessed correctly that the housing market would soon crash because people were into mortgages they couldn't afford (2).  Johnny boy then bet against his own investment poop pile by purchasing “credit default swaps” (insurance policies that pay out if borrowers default) (3).  He basically loaded up the van in broad daylight, because Looky Lou's have their high beams on at night.  He took the backstreets to avoid the heat, and never let em’ see him sweat. It takes a thief (4).

What did our government do?  Well, congress called in some old rich white guys from Goldman and gave them the same reach-a-round pat down that every other bigwig gets.  Rumor is Roger Clemons still has a hard-on from his game of Senate-Testicle-Touchy.  The bad guys at Goldman will inevitably get some big time white collar defense lawyers that the rest of us can’t afford and remind the senate that they too are all old rich white crooks.  Everything is cool.  The Daily Show will get a week’s worth of laughs at Goldman’s expense, Congress will give a few less than memorable media quotes about “regulation” and the “the need for transparency”, and then everyone at Goldman can go back to their jobs of kicking the American public in the gonads and giving them the finger.  No big deal.

If this isn’t depressing enough, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein testily told the investigative subcommittee that clients who bought the subprime mortgage securities from the firm in 2006 and 2007 came looking for risk "and that's what they got" (5).  I’m sure I'm not the only one who hopes that Mr. Blankfein actually goes to prison and makes nice with a new shower buddy who gives him “what they got”.

The genuine question for me isn’t what the people at Goldman did, but why they did it.  Why would these people become thieves when they already had so much to begin with?  Why are they so greedy that they had to defraud the American public?  I suppose they just wanted to buy more things.

If you think this is a Greek tragedy, you need to step back and smell the sweet irony.  The shareholders that Goldman defrauded invested in Goldman because they, too, are greedy.  We feel bad for them because in this lop-sided fixed game they were the losers.  Now they can’t go buy more things.
It takes a thief.


Sources Cited (aka- shit I used)

1- MSNBC:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36861208/ns/business-us_business.
2- The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/16/goldman-sachs-fraud-expla_n_540938.html#slide_image.
3- The Huffington Post:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/16/goldman-sachs-fraud-expla_n_540938.html#s81852.
4- Song Lyrics:  Coolio, It Takes a Thief.
5- MSNBC:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36861208/ns/business-us_business/page/2.