October 1, 2003

To:                   Mammon, the God of wealth

From:               Dracma, Overlord of Babylon

Subject:            Operation “Rat Race” 

My most Glorious and Illustrious Master.  I am proud to announce the success of “Operation Rat Race”.  Ah the good life!  It’s a wonderful life and you have to work like he__ just to keep up!  Everyone, including those pesky Evangelicals are on my little tread mill.  The watershed year was 1972 - the most prosperous year - the year the dollar took the least amount of effort to earn and bought the most.  Since then, although few realize it, people work longer and harder just to maintain house and home. 

Today, it takes two incomes just to maintain what took only one thirty years ago.  But just like the heroin addict - they are hooked.  Things people never even had, these modern day Babylonians need.  Today, everyone needs two VCRs.  How else can you record a tape you want?  Everyone needs their own car - including the kids.  Who has time to haul them little brats all over the place?  You have to have at least one extra bedroom.  Where else are you going to put the computer, printer, fax, scanner…?  You just have to have an extra paved pad on the side of the house (and maybe a bigger house and lot) or where else are you going to put those extra cars, the RV and boat?  A nice upper middle class family with several cars, an RV, and a nice big house pays more than $1,000 a month on insurance alone.  They used to live on that amount!

The latest statistics are out.  People are spending more than they are earning!  Isn’t that wonderful?  Debt, wonderful debt!  The average amount of credit card debt is now astronomical!  They are all refinancing their homes and spending, spending, spending!  Just like the national debt - if they buy nothing more, it would take years for the average family to pay it off.  But we know they won’t do that.  Bankruptcies are at the highest levels (and people think the economy is improving?).  The number one reason for divorce and marital problems is money problems.  Imagine the wonderful harvest of broken families we will reap! 

You want to know how successful I have been?  You want to measure my success?  Just look at the ads - on TV, the newspaper, the barrage of catalogues (Sears, Pennys, MacWarehouse, Victoria Secret, Costco, etc.) and I can show you thousands of things that every Babylonian family needs.  They need “this” for hair loss, “that” for impotence, body odor, acne, stained teeth, floppy hair, lawns with weeds, pets with fleas… ad infinitum.  You have to dress for success, drive for success, smoke and drink for success.  You know, companies wouldn’t spend millions on those silly ads unless they worked.  We have effectively brain washed an entire country! 

The effect of raising the level of want to needs means people become more and more desperate - gamble more, buy more lottery tickets, drink more, work harder, worry more, spend more on therapists, etc.  People don’t even realize it but they worship you my Master, also known as the God of Mammon (spelled MONEY).   

Now to make matters worse I will make them run faster and harder on the treadmill.  Fifty years ago,  I set in motion the undoing of the American dream by creating a “global economy” - but that is for another report at another time.  They will have to run harder just to keep up.  Needless to say, there are not many people who have escaped the rat race, the treadmill.  They are caught but just don’t know it.  There is no escape.  When we spring the trap, those unsuspecting little rats, including those who follow “you know who” will fall.  They will sell their miserable souls to maintain all those things they “need.” 

Well Lord Mammon, that is my report.  Brilliant isn’t it?

Insincerely,

Dracma, Overlord of Babylon