Tuesday, July 26, 2011

And the Color of Money is ...

Remember that moronic show “McGyver?”
Every week this young, dashing and handsome (who else do they cast as TV heroes?) guy would solve whatever problem he faced with just a handful of everyday household items.
Stuck in a blazing inferno? This brainiac would take a rubber band and a Q-tip and fashion a slingshot that would shoot out the water sprinkler and save the day.
Need a key to get into the vault that has the necessary papers to get the young, attractive and innocent (who else do they cast as TV damsels in distress?) woman out of the clutches of the dastardly tax revenuers? Our boy would take a small metal coil found by the side of the road, file it down with a pebble and, turn it into a key and voila, the vault was open.
No matter what the odds, our boy McGyver would find a way – and get the girl to boot.
The spirit of McGyver is alive and well today. But instead of finding ways to help the Ds in D, that spirit is alive and well in finding ways to make money, money and more money.
If there’s a way to turn anything into a buck, these sharks will find it.
Heroism, tragedy, good, bad or indifferent. If there’s a way to capitalize on it, bottle it or sell ads on it, these dirt rags will be cashing the checks.
The latest way of jumping on the Benjamin Express, you ask?
The environment, and the sudden interest the YUPsters have in going “green.”
Now, the environment, like everything else, has been cashed in on before. In the environmental landscape that is money, no stone is left unturned.
But the extent to which these greed meisters are going to keep the ledgers tilted in their favor has become ridiculous – even for these heartless, cutthroat bastards.
These folks will stop at nothing to pocket some extra ducats, and as long as they can pawn it off as something that “helps our environment,” so much the better.
Notice how everyone is suddenly getting discounts for not using checks to pay their bills?
It sounds so wonderfully green and healthy to be labeled a “paperless” consumer, but the bottom line is that these socially conscious companies, whether they be insurance companies, banks or energy providers, are saving money by not having to pay employees to open envelopes and do all of that clerical work that’s necessary when the checks roll in. Fewer employees means fewer salaries and fewer benefits to be paid by the bad guys.
Are there short-range benefits? Sure, I would imagine fewer trees die because of this practice, so in that respect it’s green (actually, probably more a shade of pistachio). But at the same time as these champions of all that is beautiful and breathing are supposedly doing their biological best, they are invested in companies that, as you read this, are whacking down rainforests faster than Lindsay Lohan opens vodka bottles.
But they’re saving money and appearing to be as pure as the driven snow. So, no discernable blood, no foul.
How about newspapers that are suddenly shrinking in size?
Wow, Baba Looey, what a green gesture. The paper is smaller, which means fewer trees being hacked and less waste when they’re disposed. Sounds like a win-win, right?
Stop the presses there newspaper folks, that smaller paper means the newspaper is saving money – a lot, in fact, on costly newsprint and printing ink.
Real green of ‘em, huh? Well, green that’s going into their pockets, anyway.
But in this day and age, green sells. Don’t be surprised if Captain Planet soon becomes a target of the paparazzi. That’s why advertising circulars will push green products, even though the truth is they’d be pushing them if they were red or purple products, too. But that green label catches the eye.
And what a feather in the cap for the consumer. Look what an environmentalist I am, I’m buying laundry detergent that’s good for the planet – and it’s on sale.
Bottom line, my little dumplings, is that when it comes to making money, the only green that matters is what ends up in the sellers’ pockets.
And trust me, nothing else is being given a second thought. If a product were good for the planet or if it committed genocide, wiped every living creature, plant or organism, save the company that sells it, out of the solar system, that company would sell it, and giggle all the way to the bank.
And if that ain’t enough to turn you green, you deserve what you get.