Eat the Rich
Shiflett, Dave
P.J. Peaking on the Laugher Curve Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics P J. O'Rourke Atlantic Monthly Press / 246 pages / $24 REVIEWED BY Dave Shiflett he ongoing CNN series on the T Cold...
...At the same time, the author has a great deal of empathy for those who suffer under economic and political oppression...
...First off, this is not a book for egalitarians, save for those who enjoy a good thumb-jab to the eye: "Fairness is a good thing in marriage and at the day-care center," the author observes...
...Samuelson is shamed in the traditional way an expert is shamed—he is quoted: "Marx was wrong about many things, but that does not diminish his stature as an important economist...
...The wives have, I think, covered their bodies in Elmer's Glue and run the boutiques of Palm Springs, buying whatever stuck...
...Nor does he confine himself to traditional cocktails, as revealed during a visit to Shanghai: One of the more expendable waiters opened the hinged front of the cobra case and pinned a four- foot serpent with a forked stick...
...Yet there is precious little even-handedness here...
...The heteros don't look much better...
...Yet there are exceptions, the most notable being P.J...
...He pried the critter out of its home, grabbed it beneath the head, and scuttled off to the kitchen, holding the thrashing reptile aloft as though it were a living string of furious bratwurst...
...The American Spectator • January 1999 69...
...The death of a friend's child in Tanzania due to that nation's hideous medical system is a case in point, nor does he laugh too much at this exhibition label found in a Tanzanian museum: The Soda Bottle (ancient) The soda bottle which in use up to 1959...
...Papua New Guinea is almost ten times more prosperous, never mind that some of its citizens have just discovered the wheel...
...And that message is clear and concise: Go to hell...
...We are tipped off early on that the author is one of us...
...As TAS readers well know, O'Rourke is a man of strong and sometimes outlaw opinions...
...banquet and an address on the perils of the free lunch...
...Buy stocks until 2011, then buy Depends...
...We baby boomers have caused everything since 1946...
...These passages are all the more remarkable because this book is subtitled A Treatise on Economics and really is about the dismal science, sort of...
...But for some of us the series has inspired deep longings for the good old days, when we sprang from bed, lambasted the Soviet nomenklatura (or however we spelled it), made fun of their fat wives, taunted the sissies in Congress, ridiculed a few college professors, called for a tax cut, mooned the liberal media, cashed a check from the Moon media—then beat it over to a nonprofit think tank for a complimentary DAVE SHIFLETT is a writer in Midlothian, Virginia...
...This bottle contain a marble and rubbering which jointly (wished) as stopper for the gas...
...does quote Scripture effectively in his concluding chapter...
...Nor is this a book for those who spend their days wondering whether or not Massa Greenspan will tune the interest rate by a quarter point or so, for it is clearly written for those of us who avoid treatises on economics with the same level of commitment we avoid articles on "national renewal...
...These are images that undermine the idealized view of nature with which we are constantly bombarded, thus making this book a vital teaching tool for parents whose children have begun reflecting neopagan tendencies...
...A simple lesson, to be sure, and surely an ancient one, but also one that continues to be contested in large parts of the world, even in places where they accept Visa and MasterCard from wandering journalists...
...Paul Samuelson, co-author of the famed text Economics...
...O'Rourke, now soundly into middle age but still in possession of the old spirit, the old edge, and the timeless ability to root out a commie and give him a swift kick in the teeth...
...Those with wheels find that "Tanzania has a population slightly less than California's and is slightly more than twice California's size, and Tanzania has 1,403 miles of paved roads...
...68 January 1999 • The American Spectator "Well, what would...
...For this reader the chapter on Tanzania was the most rewarding, probably because over the past decade the entire continent of Africa has received less media attention than the spot on Monica's dress...
...Haiti is 8o percent wealthier than Tanzania...
...sometimes not corking the jug until a bit after three...
...And there's always a tinge of self-seeking in making sure that things are fair...
...His eye for the telling detail, his élan, and his talent for the inspired wise-crack will make most readers forget that they probably have better things to do than sit around reading an economic treatise...
...heads into the bush, where he finds that Mother Nature operates a highly disreputable empire...
...Each chapter is entertaining and informative and reflects a huge amount of expense account spending...
...And the stock market is going to go down...
...Having put the experts in their place, the author turns to his presentation of a pleasantly proportioned body (246 pages) of insightful reporting on the way economic beings live and operate in Sweden, Hong Kong, Cuba, China, Wall Street, Russia, Tanzania, and Albania, where post-Communist profiteers have raised entrepreneurship to dramatic levels: "The National Commercial Bank in the city of Gjirokaster was robbed with a tank...
...The guidebooks will not tell you this," his guide announces, "but giraffes are homosexual...
...The lesson is taken from the biblical warning against coveting your neighbor's wife and ass: "The Tenth Commandment sends a message to socialists, to egalitarians, to people obsessed with fairness, to American presidential candidates in the year 2000—to everyone who believes that wealth should be redistributed...
...History has brought us very low indeed...
...Shoulder pads are as high and far apart as tractor fenders, and lapel points stick out even farther, waving in the air like baseball pennants...
...One of the lions got up, walked a couple ofsteps away, took a leak, and—with no thought for the grace and style that Western-educated people so admire in African wildlife —lay down again in the piss...
...As elsewhere, a statistical overview introduces the reader to the subject nation, and in this case the numbers paint a very grim picture...
...Only a fool, he asserts, takes economics very seriously, offering as Exhibit A Mr...
...Don't you go trying to get one up on me...
...No MSNBC job for him...
...Few writers have ever so subtly woven a sexual theme into an economics treatise...
...These talents are on brilliant display in P.J.'s latest book, Eat the Rich, on page 132 of which the author observes: The New Russians are an amazing bunch...
...The neckties are as wide as the wives...
...We'll keep buying stocks until we retire...
...The math is simple:1946 + 65 = 2011...
...But a liking for fairness is not that noble a sentiment...
...Many readers will find themselves hooked from this point on...
...In fact, the author criticizes shortcomings close to home —"China's One Child program has succeeded (though whether at greater social costs than the success of America's One Parent program, I can't say)" — and even takes a swipe at his own tribe...
...This is heart-quickening prose, especially in this day when calling a hog a hog is a rare literary event and calling members of the National Organization for Women "cows" (footnote, page 25) is far too honest an observation for most editors to allow...
...If Marx was wrong about many things and screwed the baby-sitter...
...The author has set himself the task of trying to discover why some societies are rich, while others, such as Tanzania, generate 90 percent of their energy by lighting cooking fires...
...Tanzania "is poorer than Uganda, poorer than Chad, poorer than godforsaken Burundi...
...Indeed, only the least generous will begrudge him the $24 he is asking for this spilled-up collection of old magazine articles...
...Then the unimaginable happened: The Soviets went belly up, Congress went Republican, and many a Cold War thunderhead now finds himself writing articles on the ruinous influence of situation comedies, the political habits of single women who live with cats, and Bill Clinton's imperialistic gonads, with the remainder of the day spent calculating how many conservative blondes know how to change a light bulb...
...A few minutes later, the fellow emerged with a tray of brandy snifters, each filled with bright, gory liquid, plus an extra glass holding the content of the snake's gallbladder...
...Peaking on the Laugher Curve Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics P J. O'Rourke Atlantic Monthly Press / 246 pages / $24 REVIEWED BY Dave Shiflett he ongoing CNN series on the T Cold War has drawn its share of right-wing criticism, as one would expect of a series so clearly orchestrated by Hanoi Jane herself...
...responds...
...But when we hit sixty-five, we're going to sell stocks...
...Or, for that matter, no CBN job either, for the author nips a bit, sometimes starting out at four in the morning...
...It's a nice little domestic virtue...
...And we're going to wet ourselves...
...Fairness doesn't rank with charity, love, duty, or self-sacrifice...
...Then P.J...
...Such is the core argument of Eat the Rich: That without property rights and the rule of law, people should expect to generate 90 percent of their energy with cooking fires and may, in lean years, face the prospect of eating second cousins...
...Their dresses certainly appear to be glued on—flesh tight, no matter how vast the expanses of flesh involved...
...This is a noble and highly readable undertaking, though a warning or two may be in order...
...The men wear three-piece suits with stripes the width and color used to indicate no passing on two-lane highways...
...Yet if drinking cobra blood disqualifies him from a teaching position at Regent University, P.J...
...The District of Columbia has 1,104 miles (although, to be fair, our capital has worse potholes than their capital does...
Vol. 32 • January 1999 • No. 1
