Yesterday, I was listening to Beavers, my aide-de-camp and advisor in matters financial, narrate the financial abstract of my vast personal fortune when he mentioned in passing that I was doing quite well in the Stock-Market. This was, of course, no real news to me, as my stock position has always been top-drawer; decent market holdings are necessary both to balance one’s cash position and to leaven one’s investments in real estate, Swiss gold, and the slave-trade of Far Araby.
But then Beavers mentioned that the Stock-Market seems to be under-going a tremendous boom, resulting in a time of vast prosperity for countless others, as well!
My ire aroused, I demanded that he give a full account of this unnatural ubiquity of wealth. Apparently, the Market has spread its lovely, avaricious legs to every low-rent merchant with two cents to rub together and rewarding self same oafs with undeservedly high returns!
A torrent of steaming black ichor shot from my nostrils as this news sent me into a fresh rage. What has become of the free market if any half-wit can engage in open trade? Why, if we stay this course, a large “middle-class” could arise, wherein the lowliest fishmonger could purchase food, shelter, and clothing in exchange for a mere life-time of crushing debt!
Though Beavers has assured me that the poor are worse off than ever, I am significantly aggrieved by his mention of individuals, some under the age of 60, who have made small fortunes through the clever manipulation of a new type of calculating-engine, and who will doubtless spend it all on raccoon coats and bathtubs of gin. This happened once before, and I barely acted in time to stop it. Tomorrow, when the Boston exchange opens, I shall sell all my holdings in Consolidated Steam and unload six million Weimar Republic Deutschmarks. This, combined with the emptying from Zweibel ware-houses of 60 years’ storage of pork bellies and Dr. Klimpt’s Poultry Liniment, should cause a run on the market that will see New York in flames by the after-noon.
History has forgotten that, though market-crashes result in times of high criminality, as well as suicide amongst the destitute poor, there is also a down-side: I shall miss my poultry liniment. Still, in times like these, we all must sacrifice something for the good of the Republic.
T. Herman Zweibel, the great grandson of Onion founder Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel, was born in 1868, became editor of The Onion at age 20, and persisted in various editorial posts until his launching into space in 2001. Zweibel’s name became synonymous with American business success in the 20th century. Many consider him the “Father Of American Journalism,” also the title of his well-known 1943 biography, written by Norman Rombauer.
