How Much Do You Cost?

(I drafted this post several days ago and decided to "sleep" on it.  Did not want to seem too risqué.  But as I hear the outcry over the temporary cancellation of the pipeline and GOP candidates arguing about ways to improve our economy, I decided to set my more lady-like airs aside and post it anyway.)

As I headed off to college many years ago my father, a minister, told me the only semi-bawdy joke I ever heard from his lips:  A gorgeous young blond woman enters a bar and takes a seat on a stool.  Soon, a very elderly gentlemen, bedecked with diamonds, Rolex and in a tux, sidles up to her at the bar.  Though clearly very wealthy, this man was perhaps 90+ years old, barely mobile and skin loose with wrinkles.  He turns to her and says, "You are beautiful.  I will give you $1 million dollars in cash for 30 minutes alone with you in my hotel suite where you will do what I ask of you."  The young woman is taken aback.  But, she ponders his proposal.  "How bad could it be for 30 minutes?  I would be set for life with a million dollars in cash."  So, she turns to him and says, "OK."  The old rich man smiles and says, "Good.  How about the same deal for $10?"  Horrified, the young woman exclaims, "What do you think I am?"  The old man says, "Darlin', we've established that.  We're just hagglin' over price."

That joke has stayed with me ever since.  I know scripture.  I know ethics.  I can actually quote the 10 commandments.  But that joke is what comes to mind when I face an ethical decision regarding money.

If the basis of our decision making is only what it will gain us financially, then we have already established what we are and are just hagglin' over price.  The market, supply and demand, are not moral schemas.  They are financial schemas.  I will always argue that the morality of the issue carries far more weight than the possible bottom-line.  As business men consider whether to lay off people to maintain a bottom line, as top CEO's accept bonuses as they file for bankruptcy or accept government bail outs, as companies calculate ways to manufacture cheaper overseas rather than employ our folks, then each has established what they are and are simply hagglin' over price.  I hear the arguments all the time.  I watch corporations seek property tax abatements to establish operation within the boundaries of school districts.  I see governments leverage masses of cheap labor to improve their trade deals.  I see corporations arguing that the environmental cost of operations means nothing compared to the revenue and jobs. I see candidates arguing that what is good for business is good for the USA.  We've heard all that before.  I would argue that each time we listen and are tempted, we are the blond on the bar stool pondering whether she can sell herself for $1 million or $10.

One of the really nice things about aging, from my point of view, is that the temptations decrease.  I am not likely to have a rich old person approach me at a bar with an immoral proposition.  I am not likely to make a business decision that will garner money for me at the expense of someone else.  Guess I'm just old school.  For a moral cause, I'm free, or at least really cheap.  For an immoral cause, I cannot be bought.

Listen carefully to the rationales of the presidential candidates as they speak of proposed policies.  I hear blonds and rich old men.

Ten bucks, a million bucks, or no way in hell?