The hubbub over bonuses for masters of the financial universe (examples here and here) reminds Blawgletter of something a partner once said about "Money River". The partner alluded to the hazards of drinking from that stream. It sounded mysterious.
We've since learned that the partner had reference to a Kurt Vonnegut novel, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater — or Pearls Before Swine (1965).
A little more research produced the relevant passages. Vonnegut has the protagonist explain the concept thus:
The Money River [is] where the wealth of the nation flows. We were born on the banks of it — and so were most of the mediocre people we grew up with, went to private schools with, sailed and played tennis with. We can slurp from that mighty river to our hearts' content.
An American can still find fortune, the protagonist goes on, but only at the stream:
Sure[, a poor person can become rich] – provided somebody tells him when he's young enough that there is a Money River, that there's nothing fair about it, that he had damn well better forget about hard work and the merit system and honesty and all that crap and get to where the river is. "Go where the rich and powerful are," I'd tell him, "and learn their ways. They can be flattered and they can be scared. Please them enormously or scare them enormously, and one moonless night they will put their fingers to their lips, warning you not to make a sound. And they will lead you through the dark to the widest, deepest river of wealth ever known to man. You'll be shown your place on the riverbank, and given a bucket all your own. Slurp as much as you want, but try to keep the racket of your slurping down. A poor man might hear."
Ah. The Wall Street wizards committed the gross error of slurping too loudly. Worse, they imbibed public money.
And yet they seem oblivious. Vonnegut foresaw that, too:
Born slurpers . . . can't imagine what the poor people are talking about when they say they hear somebody slurping. They don't even know what it means when somebody mentions the Money River.
