Madoff

As I watch this cartoon-like man, a dead ringer for The Count, only evil, I do not get the sense, despite the media hype, that there are any true victims in this dastardly scenario.

Only varying levels of criminality.

For too long the ever-growing disparities in wealth have created huge separations between supposedly equal people, and then between those people and the less fortunate, and between the less fortunate and the even less fortunate: the starving, those families living on less than $1 a day.

So when I hear the horror over someone losing $1.6 million to this evil Count, a thief with no equal in terms of size and scope, I do not think "victim."

I think, well, that money didn't ever really belong to you anyway, and neither does the land you own, or the house you bought from the bank that is now asking for more money from you in a different way, aside from the interest and the overdraft fees and the various other ways they steal from the poor and give to the rich. You can't even claim to really, truly own the clothes on your back, because someone may come and take them, too.

Your stock portfolio isn't real. Your five houses and luxury vehicles exist but their value isn't real.

$5,000 suits exist because someone out there finds it necessary to buy them and has...or had...the money to do it.

Money isn't real.

I hope we learn, from this and the entire collapse of a corrupt system, that money can disappear. It can vanish. That which was created by man for man's supposed gain and has since controlled every aspect of every minute of every day is as tangible and real as the minutes that pass by. You can try to squeeze it in your hands and hold it forever, but it will not work.

It's time to find something different with which to occupy our time.