The Icelandic connection - 01.09.2010, Blaðsíða 32

82
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
Vol. 63 #2
back of his head with his right hand and
said, with a hint of a smile, “Yes, that is
true.”
And so the man wrote out a cheque
for $200 to the insurance man. He
explained that he was writing a short
story for a little book, and that he wanted
to add the insurance policy and a ficti-
tious name of the insurance man to it as
well. He would combine the story and the
insurance policy and bring a copy to the
insurance man to look over if he had any
concerns, for sometimes a little book can
be on the shelves of stores for several
years.
And so, the insurance policy came to
be. The insurance man went by the name
of “Walrus Gumboot,” and he called his
insurance company “Dewey Cheatum
and Howe General Insurance.” Many
would think that this was just a pretend
insurance policy, but sometimes a pretend
policy can have merit and meaning. You
see, the man was not yet so sure what he
was doing with this policy, all he knew
was that he was prodded to invest wisely
in life lest he be a fool. And if he was a
fool, he merely wanted to prove that he
might not be the only fool in this world.
And so, one day while he was snow-
shoeing with his two dogs along his secret
trail that wound through the boreal forest,
it finally came to him. The subtle voice of
the Land spoke to him. If the man was
accused of being a naive simpleton, a her-
mit, living in a little pretend world, a lit-
tle bubble, all the man had sought to do
by insuring his snow fortress was merely
ask: Who were the hundreds of millions
of naive simpletons living in their little
pretend worlds who thought their bubbles
would not burst? Hence, the economic
challenges of 2009; where did the money
go?
The man knew that any nation could
handle a minority, but no nation could
handle a majority of its citizens who
sought to take rather than to give. When
that line is crossed over, the decline
begins—even the oracles of time have
known this. Some mortals compared the
debt of the United States in 2009 to 1929.
Some thought there was a comparison and
others not. All the man knew to be truth in
his heart was that there was no comparison,
for the GDP to debt ratio in the U.S. was
higher in 2009 than in 1929. Our perceived
entitlements—fat pension plans, demo-
graphics, the conscience of the times to take
rather than to give—all these things added
together were not sustainable for a time.
And so we, the mindless mob who thought
that we could think, were caught up in the
flow of the times that we had written but
knew not. An historic correction would
come for a time; that is the nature of histo-
ry of which we are all a part.
The man saw a cure, an ancient utopian
ideal, that could rid us of our economic-
demographic challenges: all we had to do
was seek to give rather than to take, leave
the minimum wage intact, work an extra
seven years or so before receiving our pen-
sions, cut the wages and pensions of the
middle-class by about 30% (leave the basic
government pensions intact), and have all
of the large multi-national corporations
donate a substantial percentage of their
profits to help cut down the nation’s debt-
load—one great big happy family working
together to seek to give rather than to take.
But this ideal would be seen, as always it
had been, as utopian foolishness. All the
man sought to do, then, by penning these
words, was to prove that the monster of
greed would have its way in varying
degrees with all of us for a time, and we
would follow the trail that we had blazed
but knew not.
Know the patterns of history; it will
generally not be the very rich who will lose
out. Who, then, will pay the piper his due?
Who, then, is the fool in life? And if greater
wealth was used to further scar the Land,
then that would also make those of great
wealth fools as well, for who would be so