785 The Mayor As President (Or Ike and Mike)

Note to Readers of Wessay #784: Thanks for the torrent of comments from both the left and the right. My standing up for Rep. Rangel drew more views and more emails than any previous posting in this series. I'm proud to say I'm now on more hit lists than ever before, and I'm not talking about web hits. Someone please watch my back for awhile? My rear-view mirror is busted.

785 The Mayor as President (Or Ike and Mike)

Schlomo Tzedaka, the last Bronx Jew, is sitting in his kitchen with the usual sugar cube in his cheek and the glass of tea on the table before him. This is a new dinette set and Schlomo bought it only reluctantly when his previous furniture became too battered, scarred and rusted even for his fading eyesight. (Wessay™ #607 10/5/09.) Across the table is Ike the banker. Well, no. Make that Ike the ex-banker and, recently, the ex-con. Ike has a glass of tea, too, but no sugar. Lost a lot of weight in "Club Fed," and wants to keep it that way.

Ike says the agents "come knocking at about two o'clock one morning, lock me up in an interrogation chamber and interrogate me. And when I ask for a lawyer they tell me I'm not under arrest. I'm "'only being asked for information,' as in 'listen, Ike, we know what you were doing, you're small potatoes, and all we want is information that leads to the 'big guys.'" So Ike spills a few beans and they arrest him and THEN he gets to sell his Bentley to pay the lawyer he now really needs.

"It was a setup," says Ike. "The bosses? They give me this magic Bloomberg Machine. I can read the news, I can make trades, I can look at all kinds of figures and see all kinds of ways I can lump a few mortgages together in a perfectly legal instrument and sell the thing. I have a top rating. My firm has a top rating. The ratings agencies rate us and my mortgage idea a "buy," and we're all in the chips. Until the mortgages go into default. I gotta tell you, Schlomo, it's that damned Bloomberg Machine. Puts all of these opportunities in front of you and you take advantage of a big opportunity or two and they come and arrest you. I wish I'd never seen the damn box."

"So," asks Schlomo, "how do you like my new dinette set? And You're blaming the Bloomberg Machine for your troubles?"

"Of COURSE, I'm blaming it -- and now, they're talking about the inventor of a machine that wrecked the economy as running for President?"

Out the window, the two men can see the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a Bronx landmark. Schlomo says "Look out the window, Ike. The Einstein Med Center, a great institution. Ole' Al discovered stuff that led to the A-Bomb. You blame him for destroying Japan? (And what about my furniture!)"

Ike: "If you don't polish the chrome parts, this thing is going to look like the same crap as the old one. And no, I don't blame Einstein for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that's ridiculous."

Schlomo: "Okay then what about 'Guns don't kill people, people do'? Isn't that the same thing as saying the Bloomberg Machine caused the economic chaos? Someone hold a knife to your throat and make you misuse it?"

Mayor Bloomberg, the force behind the Bloomberg Terminal which is often described as a financial "electron microscope," is mentioned frequently as a possible independent candidate for President. In answer to this, he's told the Polijam Times website "(I am) a short Jewish billionaire from New York" and therefore could not possibly be President. The web page says further that he is "...divorced, anti-gun, pro-abortion rights, pro-immigrant and pro gay..." Not exactly hot positions to take when running for national office these days.

Schlomo says "the divorced part is okay. After all, we elected Reagan." The rest of the stuff? "Probably right."

Ike mentions that the Mayor did not visit him in jail where he had pulled weeds for 12 cents an hour.

"Why would he?" asks Schlomo, "he already has too many rumors to deny, and that takes time and energy. More tea, Ike?"

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions (including favoring presidential candidates who are short New York Jewish billionaires, divorced, anti-gun, pro-abortion rights, pro immigrant and pro-gay) are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2010