The Casino

In the fat old days, the people flocked to the Casino to exchange their earnings for a chance at easy, unearned fortune. The Casino, for its part, cheated every which way but fair. And the Leader and the Council sat around scratching themselves. The people had hope, and the Casino had wealth, and the Leader and Council got left alone, so everyone got something out of the bargain. Then the days slimmed down, and the economy collapsed like an unbalanced jenga tower.

Chaos and self-searching ensued, and a new Leader and Council were elected with a clear mandate to "do something!" So maybe the mandate wasn't so clear, but fortunately, the people elected, however accidentally, some people with sense and at least a couple of cojones.

The first thing the Leader did was call in the Casino owners.

"Is it true that you cheat like the dickens?" asked the Leader.

"Sure," said the Casino owners. "Equal opportunity cheating policy. Same for everybody. Ain't no law against it."

"Got it," said the Leader and got the Council to pass the Casinos Can't Cheat Law, or CCC.

Then the Leader and the Council passed the People Get a Pension Law, or PGP.

"Here's the deal," said the Leader to the people. "From now on, a percentage of your pay goes into a pension fund. When you retire, you get a pension. If you want to blow the rest of your paycheck at the Casino, that's up to you, but we are not going to leave you broke and homeless when you get old."

Following the enactment of the CCC and the PGP, the economy stabilized. Of course, people still gambled and, as everyone who doesn't live in a hole knows, the odds favor the House. Even when the House doesn't cheat. So the Casino owners were still filthy rich. Just not as rich as they wanted to be. And they suffered the daily torture of knowing that somewhere there was a nickel they couldn't get their hands on.

And so The Campaign began. That is, the Casino owners' campaign to accumulate every penny that was rightfully theirs, and every penny was rightfully theirs. They had learned two things from their failure at the great economic collapse, and figured out how to creatively apply a third thing, which they already knew.

The first thing they learned was that they had been too honest. Too honest about their dishonesty. When someone asks if you're a crook, you don't say, "Yes." But there was still plenty of time and opportunity to lie. While there was a CCC, there was no CCL. Casinos could lie all they wanted. So they did.

"The CCC is bad for the economy and bad for you," they said. "Cheating casinos are the bedrock of society. It's in your best interests for us to cheat the crap out of you."

They also hired clever people who could say that better, so that people wouldn't go getting the right idea.

The second thing the Casino owners learned was that elected officials could make trouble for you. So they purchased some of their own. What they had originally considered an expense, they now understood was a shrewd investment.

The thing that the Casino owners already knew was that people were sheep. In the past, they had been content merely to fleece the sheep, but the sheep had unexpectedly turned out to have a rudimentary understanding of things that were bad for them, such as lack of food and shelter. But this problem was easily remedied. By use of sheep dogs and other herding techniques, the sheep could be deceived and bullied into thinking, for example, that wolves were their friends.

With their new-found understanding, it was not long before The Campaign succeeded in repealing the CCC. Hardly anyone knew that the Casino owners were involved or indeed, that anything had happened at all. But the results were not long in manifesting. Down came the jenga tower.

"Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!" cried the people. "What is happening?"

"It's all those Casino-hating radicals," replied the Casino owners' mouthpieces, who by then included many Councilors.

"What shall we do?" wailed the people. "What shall we do?"

"First thing is to get rid of that PGP nonsense," replied the mouthpieces.

"But we like the PGP!" objected the people.

"Too expensive," said the mouthpieces. "Nothin' but a damn Ponzi scheme. I mean, we sympathize, but look at us! We're broke!"

"However," they added, after allowing sufficient time for panic, "we do have a solution!"

"You do?" cried the people. "You do? What is it? Please tell us!"

"Sure," oiled the mouthpieces. "Come and play the Casino. What could possibly go wrong with that?"