Post 31 Power and Perfidious Profit

 With today’s announcements of ever more money going to the ever richer, I recalled this poem I wrote, after watching a programme on the television in the nineties, about life in the South of France, where the many vultures circled, and profited from the substantial gleanings off the groaning tables of the ‘nouveau’ rich.

PAMPERED FOOLS  (or the civilized vulture of the Western world) March 1993

“My market? It is the pampered fools
The big man sat loosely in the leather chair
Loosely too his well cut suit hung on his heavy frame.
He smiled as he pronounced the words
Showing his well made teeth
Contempt gleaming
Barely hooded in his dark and brilliant eye
“Let me explain something learned long ago”
His voice a velvety rumble, hoarse with good cigars
“You could say it was taught at my Father’s knee
Like you, like me”

He pauses, lifting the heavy whisky tumbler
Gazing through it’s golden contents, past the window
To the penthouse vista beyond
“Remember the story? The Emperor’s new clothes?
Well, man starts with nothing, and at first he knows;
Knows the necessity of gain
But there are some with money, who need a helping hand
With what to buy, and who to know
Then they are ready for such as me
The bringer of new clothes
I hint at good investments
Perhaps a contemporary canvas or two
Or spending the petty cash on a villa
With a sea view

The man’s bronzed well shaped hand
Grasps the glass tighter, lifts it to his full red lips
And drinks deep, savouring the spirit’s burn in his throat
With cynical bonhomie he says
“And all I get is a comfortable per cent
And on that I will live and be content
Remember there are fools and fools
But fools with money, they are easy prey
Invent their whims for them; suggest their games
Divest them of your generous per cent
And watch them play
They’ll keep you and yours in clover, mark my word
They don’t deserve, or need, whatever you can take them for”

The man’s smile looks nearer to a sneer
As he remembers past triumphs of mythical new clothes
Obtained for the pampered fools
The hard cash building in his Swiss accounts
Perched in his high backed chair of supple leather
His bald bronzed head and fine hooked nose look down
Over his well cut suit of feather grey
The civilized vulture of the Western world
Stalking his prey

Reading that again, it strikes me that, at least the vultures of yesteryear were only fleecing those that could afford it. But now, the increasing poverty of those on the lowest rung of earning power are being ordered to enrich the richest. Today’s vultures are powerful predators; backed by that ‘pyramid’ of ever growing cash backed ‘Privateers’; a subject I have covered in Post 9 ‘Privation and Privatization‘. And, one that will, almost certainly, figure in future posts in the coming months.