CSI: American Carnage (Wednesday, December 11, 2019)
THE CENTRAL PLAINS – Far beneath the wasted corn fields and to the south of town, where young people and destitute farmers slump in doorways and shake with the debilitating effects of unmanaged withdrawal, to the east of the packed methadone clinics and lengthening breadlines, the Dark Ones rest amidst the soothing background of the London Orchestral Symphony’s renderings of The Beatles 1965! The elder sips his green tea – Biluochun, fresh in from Jiangsu. My brother, he says to the younger, who rests comfortably on the floor, worms still feasting on the remains of his flesh, I must admit that the DeVos woman, the one they call Betsy, was an inspired plant within the Gambler Showman’s inner circle of ruthless thieves. Ali Baba has nothing on her, nor on the Gambler Showman himself, of course, a puppet whose dishonesty is not only monumental, but inhuman. I know you have warned about him in the past and you are silent this evening – or is it morning? – no matter. She is wondrous to behold. The need to grift would appear to be a genetic need, don’t you think? Her family has done it marvelously well. Rather than waste time making things, the family has exploited the needs and insecurities of the servi. Masterful, really. The younger is silent as an orange worm eats its way through his eye socket, depositing little piles of waste as it methodically chews. The elder continues: She has casually ignored the servi court orders, simply paying their pathetic fines and continuing to demand payment from the delinquent students, or perhaps I should say alleged students. Self interest and self dealing are powerful forces, my brother, naked, lustful, demanding, ruthless. If these alleged students could not afford to take the additional helpful courses in debt management, they have now learned that the DeVos is required to collect the debt. It is her fiduciary responsibility to her blessed fellow shareholders and principals of LMF WF Portfolio, Performant Financial Co, KinderCare Education, T2 Systems, Varsity News Network, N2Y LLC, Caldwell and Gregory, Inc., and Flip Learning. If the servi expect to know anything after their ill-considered forays into education, if they have learned anything useful in their years of schooling, if they expect to manage within our perfect system which includes survival as an option, then they will learn this: Debts must be paid. That is number one. And if you cannot pay the debt, well, then you must find someone who can, or who can at least be burdened with your obligation. Credit is a system whereby a person who can not pay gets another person who can not pay to guarantee that he can pay. This is bedrock, my brother, as Father taught so well, and we have fulfilled our obligations a million fold, as has this Betsy. The Gambler Showman, on the other hand, plays by his own rules, a source of concern, but not yet ripe. We will bide our time, my brother. — Wednesday, December 11, 2019