Four Hotels on Boardwalk

Four Hotels on Boardwalk
  *by Scoppertop

Now that Enron's Lay and Skilling have been convicted, I propose we call "fraud" a new slangy name like getting "Skillayed". Of course, they're appealing... in a "using the money they stole for their own criminal defense, instead of paying back the people they defrauded" way.

Meanwhile, everyone else prays they won't roll the number that will land them square on somebody's Boardwalk with four hotels. The Lays and Skillings of this world view their customers and employees as no more than diecast pot-metal figurines skipping around a game board. They can see your cash piled neatly into denominations and don't care what color they get, as long as they get it all.

THE LOSERS CIRCLE

Lay and Skilling are poor-mouthing. I'm sure it's because they couldn't possibly leak out that they've hidden their billions in offshore accounts. Poor Ken's mismanaged "discoverable" funds made him put his family properties up for collateral to pay his attorneys. He knows they'd only want more if they knew where it was. Awwww. I feel for him.

Sentencing is next. Pick a card... will it be Go to Jail, Go directly to Jail, Do not pass Go, Do not collect $200 billion dollars? Doubtful. Kenny Boy only rolls double sixes. Greg Palast reported years ago that Bush lifted the Speculative Power Trading Ban within 72 hours of taking office in 2001, which protected Americans from the very fraud Enron committed.

You've got to wonder if Big Oil can copy Enron's model and a similar "skillaying" is occuring among Big Greasy execs. You know you're living in an autocracy when your auto costs more to feed than your family. In their game, all you have to do is wait three turns as Bush appointees instead of going to jail. YOU try defrauding millions of customers and see what happens.

MORE GAME IN EVERY GAME!

Speaking of appointees, Karl Rove is off the jail-hook now, too -- free to swift-boat every challenger to the W-stapo regime with abandon. Just in time for November. So, now it's going to become lunatic-fringey to want to get rid of a bunch of crooks. All brought to you by the "criminalization" of wanting white-collar criminals to pay for their crimes. Factcheck.org says both sides are mis-representin' in campaigns thus far, and reports that voters are insulted.

What the W-stapo needs are some new game tokens. And a new game. How about MoNEOpoly?

FUN FOR THE WHOLE CRIME FAMILY!

The all-time favorite Monopoly™ token is the race car. No wonder we're oil addicts. I bet Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld would fight over the cannon, so I'll invent WMD tokens for them, or they can re-use the WMDs they invented for Iraq. A mobile weapons lab would be a nice touch for Cheney. I'll make a pink judge's gavel for Scooter. Condi would definitely want a different shoe, so I'd design a high-heeled gas pump for her to play with. Maybe an oil tanker would be more to her taste, but the boat I have in mind is reserved for Karl.

MoNEOpoly would need a shill token, but I don't think you could tell it was O'Reilly or Limbaugh on such a tiny die-cast figure. Besides, they wouldn't be able to stand up, and we all know those two probably don't have much of a third leg to stand behind. If they did, they wouldn't have to behave the way they do. Duh. It's so obvious.

I know -- the shill could be a little die-cast turd-pile. Rove could fight them for that one, especially if Condi happens to nab the boat first. Instead of houses and hotels, MoNEOpoly will use replicas of WTC 1 and 2 for the hotels, and WTC 7 for the lower rent category. Just don't land on them.