Harold Harmon

Dear Mr. Government,

I have been really stupid and I have been caught.

It’s not my fault, though. I learned from watching you guys run the country.

I discovered I couldn’t rip off enough people fast enough with a small business, so I studied the big businesses and learned what I was doing wrong.

I had the ripping-off part covered, but I was simply not thinking big-picture and was destined to forever be a fat fish in a skinny pond.

I was being embarrassed at cocktail parties when it seemed every Tom, Dick and Harriet was hauling in the big bucks and I was still having to settle for Thunderbird wine.

I soon realized my mistake was earning enough to live on, but not enough to run with the big dogs.

I DID MY homework on Fannie and Freddie and AIG and Merrill and Lehman.

It was a total shock to discover how stupid I had been in my approach to the good life.

I immediately added three custodians and made myself CEO, CFO and Board Chairman for Life. I then went about the business of putting other conservative souls on the board after making sure I had enough dirt to control them.

I voted myself a hefty raise and a whole wad of benefits and a mess of fine print.

I dazzled my stockholders at meetings, built showcase headquarters, issued dividends the company truly needed to buy sweet-scented paper for the new designer johns and started making appearances at all of the in-places with some nifty eye-candy by my side.

I now had the leverage to borrow bucks like you wouldn’t believe because anybody doing the stuff I was doing had to be super smart.

THEN, OF COURSE, the bottom fell out like a cheap toilet.

I had been a mover and shaker and now people were expecting to be paid for the stuff I had been moving and shaking.

After high-level meetings, it was decided that there was no way in heck the bills could ever be paid.

It was now time for Plan B and everybody knows about that one.

Plan B is where we have bitter meetings and the company I built turns its back on me and shows me the escape hatch.

It was embarrassing, falling so far so quickly. Without counseling and invaluable guidance, I might have had to pay back the money I stole, maybe go to jail, maybe even get a real job.

Thank heaven for 7-11, the golden parachute and our government bail-out program.

HERE’S THE DEAL, uncle sugar.

The easy way: You give me a bunch of money and some government contracts where I can cut corners and make a killing.

The hard way: I will declare myself a sovereign state and apply for foreign aid. The United Nations will make you pay.