About the Book
The book defines the world according to C. Binal Running, dead billionaire. What is that world about?
To give you some hints, here is a quick multiple choice quiz:
1. What company massaged world markets to pocket one hundred million dollars daily in profits?
Answer: a. W*ALLMINE! b. Exxtort Mogul Corp. c. Endrun Corp.
2. What company charged twenty-five million dollars for advice that led a century old utility to bankruptcy in less than a year? What company (the same) paid its CEO a fifty million dollar annual bonus?
Answer: a. Drooler-Glee Group b. ICBMS c. Goldin Baggs Corp.
3. Who declared bankruptcy after the malignite it mined killed or disabled one in five residents in a small town?
Answer: a. Microfang Corp. b. Baad-Halibut Corp. c. R. Tomane Co.
You’ll have to read the book to learn the correct answers, but rest assured that each of these corporations that Uncle Binal analyses wins praise for doing good business. These companies might be fictional, but their methods are as common as cheeseburgers.
Scope and Content
Uncle Binal doesn’t stop at corporate America. He analyzes all aspects of American society and the American Dream, from business, politics, taxes, energy, and economics to communications, religion, health care, nature, war, and the national budget.
His advice is filled with revelations about the lives and decisions of other important CEOs, such as Jimmy de Taco, Pluto Kozdumski, Reilly Fasthand, Sammie Schill, and Smartie Stewright. It also illuminates the careers of lobbyists, cabinet members, and elected officials all the way to the White House.
Much of the book is focused on attitude. On defining exactly what is “The Right Stuff” if your goal is to ascend the food chain, get rich, and lead The Grand Economy to world domination. Greed, self-interest, power, and manipulation lay close to the heart of the right stuff, according to Uncle Binal. Here are some of his thoughts on those subjects.
Quotes
_On power_:
“When bark comes to bite, the bigger dog always wins.” (from "Greens")
“Whatever your neighborhood, right is the whim of the last predator still standing.” (from "Right")
_On self-interest_:
“Self-interest always supersedes abstract principle….your self-interest supersedes all other self-interests." (from "Contracts")
“If you aren’t fascinated by yourself, chances are that no one else will be fascinated by you either.” (from "Narcissism")
_On Greed_:
“Greed is the misunderstood stepchild of the human heart.” (from "Greed")
“There is no greater purpose than wealth.” (from "Wealth")
_On Manipulation_:
“A tear in your eye when you talk about Bambi will put a dollar in your pocket when you build a strip mall.” (from "Environmentalists")
“The more suckers there are in the pond, the better the fishing.” (from "How You Play the Game")
To get more feel for the origins, shape and tone of the book, I suggest you read the “Acknowledgements.” It will act like a compass. Here it is, reproduced from the book.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the many pundits, political leaders, lobbyists, and business executives who have contributed ideas to this book. For a handful of you, these contributions required great personal sacrifice, and while you may have been sentenced to hard time, at least you will be allowed to serve it in penitentiaries reserved for civilized felons. I hope you will use your time to increase prison productivity, perhaps by making lawn ornaments in the wood shop or by teaching investment strategies to other felons.
In particular, I wish to thank the memory of Enron Corporation, its principals, and its many cheerleaders. Before the collapse, important magazines including Fortune, countless service clubs and fraternal organizations, and nearly every business school in America singled out Enron and its leaders as corporate icons and positive role models for future businesses. These modest lapses in judgment were later explained away on the grounds that those who emulated Enron were duped by a small handful of bad apples whose legacy died when the company died. However, the fact that Enron and its leaders were able to fool the nation’s entire business infrastructure, the American public, plus thirty-six million energy consumers in California should tell us more about our infrastructure and ourselves than about Enron. And maybe it did because since Enron’s demise, all the apples in the corporate barrel have been bright, crisp, clean, and wholesome as fruit in a Christmas stocking. Nevertheless, without the example of Enron this book would not have been conceived.
I would also like to thank “The Economy” and our billionaires and multimillionaires, that one-tenth of one percent of Americans who have worked so diligently over the past thirty years to create it, strengthen it, and ensure its ascendancy. The personal economies of us two hundred and twenty million middle class working Americans tend to stagnate. We live paycheck to paycheck and must finance purchases of everything from furniture to automobiles. Some of us, in order to keep body and soul together, forgo health insurance or apply for a second mortgage, a second job, another credit card, a winter fuel subsidy, a student loan, food stamps, or a new career at a call center for nine dollars per hour. This situation might cause widespread disillusionment if it weren’t for “The Economy.” I think I speak for all of us when I say that nothing lifts my spirits more, when I turn on public radio every morning, than to hear news that productivity is up, labor costs are down, inflation is in check, stock markets are booming, and “The Economy” is robust and expanding. In good times, when executive bonuses in finance light up the sky like supernovae and when corporate bottom lines flow into CEO’s and investors’ pockets like oil through a shiny new pipeline, we all drive to our jobs filled with pride and with confidence, and we work extra hard to contribute to the Gross Domestic Product. As a result, doctors write fewer prescriptions for anti-depressants, and each of us sleeps more soundly at night knowing that God is in His heaven and all’s right with “The Economy.” Thanks, “The Economy,” for being there. We hope you will still be there in 2027 when the last baby boomer retires and your margin calls flood in.
Those forces of nature that permit “The Economy” to exist and that shape its tone and textures also deserve special acknowledgment. These immutable laws of economics work like gravity and the speed of light, and when operating in a deregulated environment on a global stage, they are free to perform free market magic. In fact, they are greening the American economy by forcing us to discard socialist tendencies and to comply with the intelligent design inherent in nature’s laws. Fierce competition, resulting in the survival of only the fittest players; rugged individualism; aggressiveness; the mechanism of supply and demand; enlightened monetary policy; laissez faire labor pools in countries liberated from age and wage regulations; the concentration of wealth in the hands of those most likely to make large investments for large returns; the imperative to growth; the leveling of international playing fields; the elevation of predation to a fine art; and the elimination of interference from governments, unions, ethics, empathy, and good taste; all these forces and more allow The Invisible Hand to write our future. I am confident that it is writing a script that will produce an America unlike anything we have ever known on this continent. In gratitude, I offer my hand to The Invisible Hand. We will not betray your trust. We will continue to vote for your candidates, report for work, shop, borrow, pay our taxes, and schedule our knee-replacement surgeries in Thailand.
Finally, I wish to thank my financial mentor, Scrooge McDuck. You still give us hope. Deep down inside, each of us two hundred and twenty million knows that if we just work a little harder, grab a little more, network with more enthusiasm, and learn the secrets to success hidden away in those motivational tapes, then some day we too will be able to backstroke through cubic acres of money, which is our only goal in life. You continue to represent that American Dream for the rest of us ducks who are not yet rich enough to swim, not yet poor enough to quack, but just comfortable enough to remain sitting.
