"There are two novels that can change a bookish 14-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers.
So the top 400 richest people on the planet decide they're sick of dealing with the little people, and retire to Galt Gulch.
Day one: Four hundred people wander around Galt Gulch. "Where's my mansion?" Christy Walton asks. "I think we're supposed to build our own shelters," Larry Ellison replies. "I'll just hire some Mexicans to build me a new mansion," Charles Kotch says. Bill Gates mutters, "Do you see any Mexicans here?" Jim Walton says, "Just go to the nearest Wal-Mart and shout 'La Migra!' at the top of your voice, and stand outside. You'll see plenty of Mexicans to hire." "There's no Wal-Marts here," David Kotch says in an irritated voice. Alice Walton looks shocked, and says "What do you mean there's no Wal-Mart here? There's Wal-Marts like, everywhere!"
Warren Buffet sighs. "We have rocks and we have trees. All we have to do is pile up rocks into walls, and cut down the trees to use the wood to make roofs." "But I might break my nails!" Christy Walton screeches, a look of horror on her face. Michael Bloomberg interjects, "First things first. I'm hungry. What's for dinner?" Larry Page wanders by, a confused look on his face. "Just go onto Google Maps and look for nearby takeout restaurants and order something," he says. "Dolt!" snaps Sergey Brin, "We don't have computers here, and there are no restaurants, this is Galt Gulch, not Galt Silicon Valley!" Sheldon Adelson says, "I have a candy bar. I'll bet you this candy bar that nobody knows how to cook in this gulch." George Soros snarks, "I'll take that bet, because my fellow rich people are dolts, morons, and idiots, helpless without their serfs to do their every bidding." Michael Dell irritably says "That's mean, George. Anyhow, the answer is clear. I'll just use my credit card to buy that candy bar from Sheldon, and sell it on the Internet." "Monkeys! Monkeys! I see monkeys!" Steve Balmer shouts, and Paul Allen looks around, "hey, maybe we could eat those for dinner." Jeff Bezos says "Sure, just order a barbecue grill and a cigarette lighter from Amazon.com and we'll have barbecue monkey for dinner." Ann Chambers asks, "has anybody seen my nurse? I feel a fainting spell coming on." John Paulson snaps, "We don't need those little people. We are the masters of the universe. We own everything." "That's okay," Donald Bren says. "I'll just hire some contractors to bulldoze all this and put up a McMansion tract housing plot." Abigail Johnson helpfully says, "I think if we provide a mortgage-backed security for that application, we can obtain a significantly higher profit." Phil Knight says "so do you know how to drive a bulldozer, Donald?" and Donald looks at Phil with a look of horror that says "what, me, get my hands dirty?" Carl Icahn then says "let's do a leveraged buyout of bulldozer drivers." Ron Perelman yells, "Does anybody here know how to drive a bulldozer?" Silence follows.
As darkness falls, the 400 denizens of Galt Gulch huddle, hungry and cold, under the marginal shelter of the sparse trees populating the gulch. But they do not huddle in silence. As they huddle, they talk excitedly about new kinds of CDO's, leveraged buyouts, Internet search algorithms, optimal investment strategies, and the advantages of computerized inventory control. Over the next few days, the denizens of Galt Gulch slowly fade away, until in the end there are only 400 corpses, doomed by their inability to, like, actually do anything for themselves, as vs loot things from other people.
The End.
The above is, alas, a work of fiction. Oh well.
-- Badtux the "Too Bad" Penguin
