Seven in every ten

Dear Dr. Bones,

"What song the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture."

That was then; this is now. We *know* that Babbitt of Zenith assumed the name "Th. X. Bloomer" to camoflauge himself among the Mason jars that grow not far from the banks of the silvery Ohio. And as to the songs his incognito freelordship sings to the Warren County Chambermaids of Commerce, ¿Who needs conjecture now that we’ve got Pajamas?

Today HFL has resorted to the farther reaches of the kiddie-selfservative repertory. Rarely do the stout Neohomers of Party an’ AEIdeology strike their bloomin’ liars, an’ make a long face, an’ wail "A significant percentage of start-up businesses fail in a relatively short time."

(( Neohomer eventually whips out his handy iScam device, which informs him that seventy percent over ten years counts as ‘significant’. ))

¿Can the kiddiecons an’, more importantly, a wannabe Conner of Kiddies like his freelordship, REALLY want this bit of ‘news’ to get out? ¿Or further out, any way?

’Twill not come as much of a revelation to many folks other than Wally Wombschool an’ Cindy from Wasilla, plus possibly Joe the Wurtzelbacher, but I thought that to keep precisely that gruesome twosome in the economic dark was the whole crux and pith and gist of Vienna Sausage Chicagonomics. It has always been difficult for me to imagine the bards an’ other hogen-mogens of the Sausagenomical Community hushin’ their scandal up forever, though easy as pie to understand why Master Wally an’ Mizz Cindy should be predestined suckers for the so-called "Whig Pastoral." [1]

The trouble, however, is so plain that it ought to be visible even at Rio Limbaugh. Suppose that Master Wally finds himself most unaccountably [2] scrooged by ScroogeBank, his "middle class" (for of course a Master Wally *will* call M.C. any position he can squeeze his obesity into) position downsourced to Xanadu an’ Bangalore, or possibly outsized altogether. ¿What is he to do? ¡Not a hard question! -- OF COURSE Wally Wombschool must now go out an’ *entrepreen for himself. Everybooby knows that is the only way to avoid Death an’ maybe even Ponzi.

So Wally tries it [3], an’ promptly hits his 70/10. Well, what the younker hits is everybooby’s 70/10, really, the 70/10 of which stout Neohomer here barks, but always remember, Dr. Bones, that "another’s tears are water": ’tis Master Wally’s stubbed nose that hurts Master Wally.

From this plain and simple consideration, I conclude that the viability (as agitprop) of Whig Pastoralism an’ vulgar sausagenomics an’ the _Idylls of Bloomer depends on everybody not tryin’ to entrepreen themselves at once. Probably on most people not trying it ever.

In a way, Whig Pastoralism, in its current ‘pettybiz’ recension, resembles Prof. Dr. Turner’s frontier hypothesis: entrepreenin’ oneself works as an escape valve in practice, but only because not many Walter Mittys or Wally Wombschools ever get around to actually trying to escape. Were the whole theater to rush for that supposed egress at once, why, ¡Father Barnum alone knows how bad the disaster would be! Most assuredly, sir, not even the giant egress of Madagascar could ever lay enough gold-standard eggs to meet that panic level of demand. [3]

I incline to guess that their G.O.P. Geniuses (®) -- mot unassisted, to be fairembalanced, by our £eader$hip Democrats -- have already pushed outsizin’ an’ downsourcin’ past the tippin’ point. Anybooby really serious about _L’entrepreneuriat en Amèrique_ nowadays had better have good connections at Shanghai.

(( And ¿wouldn’t it be lots of fun to write up "The Chinese Adventure of Horatio Alger?" Or make that, if you like, ". . . of Horatio Bloomer." [3] ))

To guess that Greenback Exceptionalism is dead and gone entails, I think, the further guess that the pettybiz flim-flam will finally have to stop sometime around three weeks from next Wednesday. There will be so many seven-in-tenners visible that even Master Wally Wombschool may soon get an inklin’ why there used to be a joke about us all making a living by taking in one another's washing. [4]

Happy days.
--JHM



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[1] I have always thought that Schlesinger Minor called it so in his _Age of Jackson_, but the pet g@@gle does not seem to agree. One might even get a silly impression that this coarse and illiterate keyboard is myself responsible.

*

[2] ‘Unaccountable’ is only for starters. Not only is Life ‘unfair’, so is ScroogeBank. I mean, ¿Did the SB’s not solemnly promise young Wally that he an’ the lovely Cindy would be eaten last of all? Yet here they are, despised an’ betrayed an’ disemployed -- an’ worst of all, ¡that Demoncrat Lieberal ratfink of a Bob Cratchitt has STILL not been fired!

*

[3] I sacrifice accuracy to merriment a little here, admittedly. Little Horry Bloomer would never have an exotic adventure, he’s as parochial Yank as a huckleberry sundae. As boondocksy as a Babbitt of Zenith.

*

[4] Meanwhile, out at the Masonjar Country Club, only a few short clicks from Cincinnati, Party Neocomrade (third grade) Th. X. Bloomer may be found congratulatin’ the local three-in-tenners (plus a few seven-in-tenners not yet unmasked) on so splendidly bodyin’ forth the Spiritual Beauties of Inequality.

"American Whig Pastoral" is by no means the only shaft in little Horrie’s quiver. Indeed, the intellectual level of American whightism may improve a little -- ¡at last! -- when the Party neocomrades can give up pretendin' that everybody is, or can be, or ought to be, a Wunnerful Winner almost on a par with their golfclub-assembled freelordships. (The real W.W.'s must get very sick an' tired of *that* cant.)