Bill and Me

Bill and Me

On Tuesday, January 21, 1997, I went to see ex-senator Bill Bradley speak at the Saint Luke's School in lower Manhattan, where they host a lecture series and many interesting and prominent people speak, usually as a thinly disguised excuse to hawk their books, which, for some reason, there is always a warm fresh pile of on a conveniently set up table in the lobby where a representative of the publisher sits with a cash box and a calculator. But I have no problem with this.

Senator Bradley is a very eloquent speaker, as many politicians are. He is also an ex-basketball player and an Olympic gold-medalist, which gives him something extra to talk about during the obligatory question and answer period which follows the message of inspiration. Question and answer periods are necessary at these events because they prove to people that these mega-humans are, in fact, not only accessible, but ordinary people just like you and me. These speakers endow their answers with such sincerity when you're up close enough to see their whiskers, that you can't help but think that they really know what they're talking about, and they leave you with the impression that there does exist in the world, people who, in fact, not only feel your pain, but understand those lofty concepts which are above and beyond the comprehension of normal folk like you and me--like the concepts of addition and subtraction and compound interest.

The senator spoke about how we as a nation are really doing very well in spite of what the negatively-biased media filters for us to see, and that our economy is really briskly chugging along; one look at the stock market is all the proof of this we need, the ex-senator told us. He had facts and figures on the tip of his tongue to support this. The audience was captivated, radiantly smiling, and humming with the knowing gleam of agreement, because they knew in their hearts that the senator spoke the truth. In almost the next breath, a woman asked about the plight of the single mother and her inability to make ends meet, and the rising number of two income families that can barely make it. The senator now spoke about the social problems facing the American people, and how we have neglected an entire portion of the population in this great land with its brisk stock market which is creating incalculable new wealth for everyone. He was always careful, sensitive, and mindful during his heart-wrenching disclosure of the horrifying statistics at his ready disposal, to refer to black people in the politically correct vernacular: African Americans, and: minority Americans. Once again, the white audience smiled in lockstep with that knowing gleam, humming under their breaths, because they knew in their hearts that the senator spoke the truth from his heart.

My hand finally shot up, and ex-senator Bradley, democrat from New Jersey, called on me. I said: "Senator, I see this giant number five in my head, and that five is followed by twelve zeros. Given the two hundred and fifty million people in America, I'm not even sure that all these nice Caucasian Americans I see here can afford their twenty thousand dollar share of this debt. Do we really have to pay it back, or can we just ... forget about it, and go on like normal?"

Ex-senator Bill Bradley's eyes glazed over, and at that moment I knew the two hundred people in that room wished I had attended a different commercial function. I had to go ahead and spoil everyone's good time by asking: that stupid question. No one wanted to hear: that stupid question again, and certainly not the senator. I could have asked about the Olympics, or about the halls of power, the halls of justice, or the halls of fame, or great people he has known, but I had to ask: that stupid question, which is irrelevant to the concerns of everyday working Americans.

He'd already warned the good people before he opened the floor that there might be a few unkind or irrelevant questions he didn't care to answer. "Don't worry, I'll answer it," he assured everyone with a defensive flourish, thus endearing himself to the folks even more, by demonstrating the man of reason and sound judgement that he is, and a man who is not afraid to occasionally waste his time yielding to the trivial concerns of a few nasty people. His body language evoked a wave of low-grade laughter by brilliantly connecting to these persons of the ordinary American persuasion, whom he held in the palm of his hand, and they felt privileged that he was personally letting them in on his patronization of someone who not only wasn't a member of the mutual admiration society, but was completely out of it and simply not with the program of moving America ahead: namely me! I was clearly no better than a heckler more in need of pity than scorn. The senator looked at me with slits where his wide eyes used to be, then said with a warm condescending perky dismissive smile, "I presume your talking about the deficit, and given a growing economy, projections indicate the deficit should disappear by oh, say, 2002 or 2007," then he promptly looked up for the next question.

Being the bastard I am, I wouldn't let this silly five trillion dollar thing drop. "But how will we attack the principal of this debt?" I called out. "How will all those single mothers pay their share of the principal in this growing economy of ours, when these people here can't even afford theirs? Don't we need not even a balanced budget, but positive cash flow to pay it off?"

"With a growing economy it's not a problem, and that's why America needs to keep growing. Next question...."

So there you have it. A growing economy is clearly the answer. Bill told me so, and I'd be a damn fool not to believe him. After all, he's a Rhodes Scholar, a gold medalist and a basketball Hall of Famer; I'm just an engineer living in this silly world of numbers, facts, and physics.

A famous man said: God is in the details. Our money says: In God We Trust. Unfortunately it is the theologians who will be the only ones left to pick up the financial pieces, not only because it says so on the money, but because the politicians have completely abdicated their responsibility; they have left us with an unsolvable problem which the majority of them refuse to even publicly acknowledge; the people don't care about financial abstractions which, with a knee jerk reaction, the politicians brush off as an alarmist mentality when pressed, and from my myopic perspective, no one from barroom drunks to U.S. senators has been capable of giving me a satisfactory explanation, and the only conclusion is that there is none. I can calculate an interest payment in spite of the lies they force feed the world, and they really are maliciously cooking the books, and they'll keep doing it until the great default sometime in the next century; then they'll act like this thing popped out of nowhere, like a flood or an earthquake, and they'll blame each other as we watch from the cyber dust bowl. It seems that all the sane people are in straightjackets while the lunatics are jiggling the keys, and perhaps this is exactly how it should be, because we listen and keep voting for people who make us feel good with the same old familiar bedtime stories. This is a game of musical chairs though, and we're all wearing our party hats and jeering like happy idiots, and someone will be left holding the bag, but you can be sure it won't be Bill. He's done his time, and now it's the lecture circuit, talk shows, and, if my crystal ball serves me correctly--perhaps his eye is on a much bigger prize.

But, in spite of the smoke and mirrors, I really did enjoy my evening with Bill, even if two plus two equals, well, whatever the hell they tell us it equals.