Lots of Money or Not Lots of Money and a Shout Out to John the King

A German multibillionaire named Merckle threw himself in front of a train this morning because his fortunes had declined. Perhaps he was involved in some kind of financial chicanery like Bernard Madoff, who bilked the endowments of universities, bankrupted charities, anyone whose money he could get his hands on that was stupid enough to play along in his swindle. Sadly, Madoff has yet to throw himself under the train.

Look, if Merckle WASN'T swindling somebody, why would he kill himself? If you have a zillion billion and you lose half a zillion billion, is it really worth dying for? Nahhh. The dude has got to be guilty.

So what is it about the letter M? Merckle. Madoff. Milken. Maybe, if your last name comes in the exact middle of the alphabet, you never get to sit in front next to the teacher. Maybe that pisses you off so much that you decide you are going to have grow up and go screw an entire generation out of their retirement funds.

But it's a fine line between greed and ambition. We all pick occupations that have set pay scales built into them and then we work to get to the upper end of that scale. This is called ambition.

If you have the capacity and desire to become a doctor, your pay scale will be higher than if you choose to be a high school teacher. A high school teacher will earn more than a plasterer and a plasterer will earn more than a waiter and a waiter will earn more than a day care worker. That's the way it is. Our jobs define our earning potential. We make those choices out of free will, for the most part.

Unless you're an artist, where the odds are you'll make very little at your job and will supplement your income delivering pizza. Plotnik remembers the figure that 98% of actors in the Screen Actors' Guild haven't worked in three or more years. And these are the people who were busy enough to qualify for the union in the first place. Same with the musicians union -- no one gets rich. Let's just say only a few members of the union know how to play Rachmaninoff, but every damned one of them has played The Girl From Ipanema 500 times.

Then, there are the exceptions, the Superstars, the lucky ones who are not only good but happen to be in the right place at the right time with the right attitude and the right team assembled and that winning smile. Or sneer.

And The Greedy Bastards. The Greedy Bastards are usually really smart. They see what everybody else doesn't. Apparently, once you travel in the rarified air where it seems that God has pointed out to you and you alone that there is a sucker born every minute and you're the only one who has noticed, it is hard to avoid diving in.

This is Plotnik's guess, anyway. If your job classification is Greedy Pig, you want to be the Best Greedy Pig you can be, so you can hold your head up while at the trough with the other Greedy Pigs. So maybe it's all just ambition, magnified?

Who knows? But we interrupt this broadcast to send Best Wishes to John the King, who is sporting a bit of his own sneer these days. Feel better, King, your public demands it.