Larry the Billionaire Episode 18 Shattering FDR Myth

            Dana is excited because she is done with graduate school.  She is 32 years old and now that she has an additional degree, she has gotten a significant raise at work.  Dana is 5’10” with brown skin typical of her Trinidadian heritage.  She keeps her jet black hair short and has a toned body with large breasts and a small butt.  As she no longer has to balance work and school, she pursues other activities such as yoga and marathon training.  With her new found increase in income, she decides to help her struggling parents by buying them a car and maintaining it for them.  Life is beginning to turn for the better. 

            It’s been three years and Dana has found out that with her large social life, helping her parents and the activities she’s involved in, her financial situation has only deteriorated.  Her credit cards are almost maxed out and she doesn’t seem to know how she’s going to pay them off.  This has led to high stress levels and since Dana doesn’t deal with stress too well, it manifests itself in her constantly getting sick.  She is with a close friend of hers who she hasn’t seen in a while.  The conversation starts off normally but as it progresses, she becomes defensive.  She voices her financial troubles just so she doesn’t bottle it up inside.  Her friend says, “Well, first off, you need to stop paying for your parents.”

            “I can’t do that, they’ve done so much for me”

            “Are your other three siblings helping out?”

            “Well no, but two of them have kids so they have their own problems to deal with”

            “You need to take care of yourself first before you can help someone else.”

            “Look, I make more than you do so I don’t really need to hear this.”

            “You make more than I do, we both live in Manhattan, we’re the same age.  We went to the same undergraduate college and I have absolutely no debt of any kind and you have massive debt.”

            “Well I can manage my finances just like you can.”

            “I could help you.”

            “I don’t need your help!  I’m not some damsel in distress.”

            “Okay”

            “You just like seeing me suffer”

            Her friend got mad and his voice raised as he fired back, “Is that what you think?  You don’t think that since we’ve been friends for over a decade and I care about you that I don’t like seeing you in debt.  Instead, you take the opposite approach that I like it.”

            “Well maybe, I just don’t like your smug tone.”

            “I don’t think it’s smug. I’m saying that you need to be selfish and take care of yourself.  I have no idea how that can be smug.”

            The conversation proceeds this way and they get the check and go their separate ways.  Little did they know that someone was paying close attention to their conversation. 

            Larry was a billionaire and was having dinner at the bar of the restaurant.  He wasn’t much of a cook so had to eat out a lot.  As he was sitting there, he noticed a heated discussion by a guy and a girl.  The girl was attractive enough and he got his check as they started arguing.  When they left, he decided to follow the girl thinking that she was probably heading to a bar to drown her anger.  Since they were speaking quite loudly, Larry knew about her financial troubles.  Based on her prideful refusal for help, he felt his proposition had a 50/50 likelihood of success.  She got into a cab and Larry hailed another one to follow her.  The feeling of being a stalker was not lost on him but he probably wasn’t about to get caught because this was the only time he’d pursue her.  If she went to an apartment building, he’d simply keep going as making the proposition with the implicit assumption that he knows where the girl live was not something he was willing to do. Luckily for him, the girl got dropped off at a bar.  He followed her in and ordered a drink purposely waiting at the bar next to her.  He turned to Dana and said, “Hey, I’m Larry.”

            Dana smiled politely and said, “I’m Dana”

            “You look really nice today.”

            “Thank you” she replied with her smile getting wider but still fake. 

            “Wow, that smile is dangerous.  I bet you get far with that charming men.”

            Dana glared at him and retorted, “Oh, the time when men are in power and women have to charm them is coming to an end.  No, I make my own money; I don’t need no man to take care of me.”

            “Are you trying to say that rich people never have someone buy them a drink or a meal or something like that?”
            Dana paused to contemplate this for a second.  She had never had a guy come back at her.  Normally the feminist talk scared them off.  She said, “Ummm, I’m not so sure.”

            “Well, let me tell you.  Rich people get free shit all the time.  I mean, nothing is really free, they’re doing it so that they can have a moment of their time to try to sell them stuff or so that they think they owe them a favor later.  When the offer is made, however, it is not explicit or even expected that something must be exchanged.  Really, you just are buying the opportunity for something more.  If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.  This is similar to a guy buying a girl dinner or a drink.  They are hoping it leads to a date or taking the girl home but it certainly isn’t mandatory or even expected to work every time.  The guy is just taking a chance.  Other rich people, however, don’t go around getting insulted when someone picks up a check.  I wonder why the feminists do.”

            “Well…I mean it’s degrading”

            “How so?  Do you think a guy would be insulted if you bought dinner for him and then told him that you expected him to fuck you now that you bought him dinner?

            “Well even though women like sex just as much as men, we don’t do that.”

            “I think the very fact you don’t do that is proof that women don’t like sex as much as men.  They can enjoy it, but definitely not as much as men.  That is why men will spend an obscene amount of money at the chance of getting laid whereas wealthy women will not do this.”

            The drinks had long since come and Dana noticed that she had stayed longer than she needed to.  She said, “Well, it was nice meeting you Larry.” As she turned to walk away.

            Larry called out, “I mean, guys are so stupid that some of them would pay off a $16,000 credit card debt in exchange for one night with them.” Dana stopped in her tracks.  That was the exact amount that she told her friend she had on her highest credit card debt.  She turned and glared at Larry who smirked guiltily at her.  Larry continued, “Why don’t we sit down and continue this debate.”

            “I don’t like arguing” Dana stated sheepishly 

            “Yet you started an argument for me for simply telling you that you have a charming smile.  It was easy enough to avoid the debate.  You could have merely offered, ‘thanks, it has its perks.’  Even if that’s not what you meant, what do you care if I think you’re not a feminist?  You just met me.”

            Dana sized up Larry who was wearing a T shirt and shorts.  Nothing about him cried wealth but nowadays you never knew.  She decided to take the chance and agreed to sit at a table together.  They sat down and uttered, “You definitely sparked my interest.”

            Larry sat down across from her and pronounced, “I apologize if I freaked you out.  It is true I was at the restaurant where you were arguing with your boyfriend and I decided I’d offer to help you.”

            Dana laughed.  “That wasn’t my boyfriend. Him and I are just friends.”

            “Well, then that makes what I’m about to say a little easier.”

            “What’s that?”

            “I think I was pretty clear when you were walking away.”

            “You are going to give me $16,000 to have sex with you?”

            “No, I’m going to call your credit card and pay them the money to pay off your card.”

            “Isn’t that the same thing?”

            “Not in the slightest”

            Dana got what he was saying.  She was slightly offended but the idea to wipe out her biggest credit card debt for one night of sex was tempting.  She knew she couldn’t agree right away though.  She inquired, “It’s pretty shitty that you think I’m a prostitute.”

            “If I thought you were a prostitute, I would have asked you how much.  Prostitutes charge much less. It’s because you’re not a prostitute that I understand I need to overpay.”

            “Will you pay my credit card first?”

            “Nope”

            “Then how do I know you will?”

            “Well, I can write up a contract for it and you can sue me if you’d like.”

            “Why not do it the other way?  You write the contract and I’ll sign it and you pay the card first.”

            “Because a judge or jury would me much more sympathetic to you that I made this offer and didn’t pay the bill after you had sex with me than they would be if I paid your credit card bill and you didn’t have sex with me”

            This was both true and misleading.  Larry did believe this to be the case but the real reason was that you can’t enforce an illegal contract.  Prostitution is illegal in New York City so a court can’t force someone to have sex with someone just because they signed a contract.  Dana asked with a stoic face because she no longer felt the need to flirt, “Will it be good sex?”

            “Nope”

            Dana burst out laughing.  She wasn’t expecting such a blunt response to the negative.  She decided to just go with it.  After all, she had been having casual sex for years.  “Ok, when do you want to do this?”

Larry shrugged his shoulders and announced, “Tonight?”

      “Alright”

They closed their tabs and Larry pulled out his phone to call an Uber to his place.  Dana intercepted with, “Can we do it at my place?”

      “Why’s that?”

      “I don’t exactly trust you” she shyly articulated

      “You don’t trust me but you’re willing to let me know where you live?” Dana thought about this and realized that he had a point. Larry suggested, “Let’s go to a hotel.”

      Dana smiled and rejoined, “That’s a good compromise.”

 

Larry got a hotel room and checked in.  He and Dana went up to the room.  Since Dana felt cheap and uncomfortable, she wanted to get it over with.  Dana stripped herself of her clothes and Larry approached her. They made out as Larry removed his clothes. Dana spun around so her back was facing the bed and lured Larry back to the bed.  She lay down and put her right leg in between Larry’s legs.  Larry straddled her leg and placed a condom over his penis.  Dana took her left leg and put it on Larry’s shoulder and Larry lunged himself into her.  His hands groped her breasts and slid down her legs as he kissed her neck and mouth.  Dana said, “You know, I’m beginning to feel like a prostitute so can you just hold me to give it some semblance of a real hook up?”

            Larry rolled off her and Dana turned onto her side.  Larry crept up behind her and penetrated her from behind as his right hand slid under her neck and his left around her waist and rested on her stomach.  Dana gyrated her hips slowly as Larry moved his hand on her stomach up to her breasts.  His hands explored her body as he gently inserted his penis into her.  Dana said, “Okay, I’m over it now” and moved forward forcing Larry’s penis out of her.

            Dana stood up and Larry sat up on the bed.  Dana straddled Larry and he lied back on his back.  Dana grinded her body fast and hard as Larry grabbed her ass.  Shortly thereafter, Larry squirmed as semen propelled out of his penis and was rejected by the latex of the condom.  Dana rolled off him as Larry panted.  The whole encounter lasted less than six minutes.  She couldn’t believe she was going to get thousands of dollars for six minutes of work.  As she lied next to him, she looked over ready to find out how it really was too good to be true.  He commanded, “Give me your phone”

            Dana did and Larry didn’t take it.  Larry continued, “Pull up your biggest credit card and I’ll pay it.”

Dana did so and Larry made a one-time payment from his bank account then immediately deleted it from her account.  He handed her back the phone so she could see the confirmation.  All she could mutter was “Thank You”

“No problem”

            Dana got up and stated softly and with obvious vulnerability in her voice, “I kind of feel weird just leaving right now.  Obviously I owe you but I really want to hate you for doing this because it goes against everything I believe in but I can’t help but feel grateful.”

            “That’s because despite what the feminist movement has brainwashed you girls into thinking, you still are more likely to get attached during sex than men are.”

            “Yea, you know you tried these anti-feminist comments, it’s not working.  Can you say something else to make me hate you so that I’m okay with never seeing you again?  That is what you want right?  To fuck me and never see me again?”

            “That is correct.  I also think it’s pretty audacious of you that even after I took care of a very large credit card debt, you can assume that I still owe you something.”

            The fact that Larry was doing what Dana asked and tried to give her a reason to hate him was lost on her.  She responded, “I’m sorry, you’re right but I don’t think your intention was to hurt me.”

            “So you want me to tell you something that won’t hurt you but make you hate me?”

            Dana looked back and forth and realized that she had no rebuttal so simply declared, “Yes”

            “I’m a far-right conservative and I don’t make an exception for President Donald Trump”

            Dana nodded and exclaimed, “Yup, that’ll do it.  Good job.  But that’s okay, I’m the party of FDR”

            “Yes, I know that’s why I’m a conservative because of people like him.”

            “He was one of our greatest presidents.  Everyone knows that.”
            “No he wasn’t and no they don’t.  The failing American education system teaches that but when you get into his policies, most people are against them.”

            “Like what?”

            “Internment camps for people we’re at war with”

            “Oh right, I forgot he put Japanese in internment camps.”

            “What if Bush put Iraqi-Americans and Afghan-Americans in interment camps? “

            “I would have hated him for it”

            “There you go.”

            “But Japan actually attacked us.  Iraq and Afghanistan never did.”
            “Japan attacked us because FDR refused to talk to the emperor of Japan.  He aided China and enforced embargoes against Japan and refused to negotiate with them for a compromise.  He wouldn’t even talk to them.  America was not neutral before they got in the war.  Japan had no choice but to fight back since the diplomatic option was impossible.”

            “Well, at least they did it on a military base and not civilians.”

            “That’s good on Japan not FDR”

            “Yea true, but it was a hectic war.  The New Deal worked.”
            “No it didn’t.  A return to free markets after the war worked.  FDR was dead by then.”

            “Yea but the unemployment rate plummeted”

            “Do you know what the unemployment rate is?”

            “Yes, the amount of people who don’t have work and are looking….for….work.”

            “What happened to the millions of Americans within a peak demographic for unemployed?”

            “They were drafted”

            “So, since they were fighting in Europe and the Pacific, what were they not doing?”

            “Looking for work”

            “Which means?”

            “They weren’t included in the unemployment rate anymore.”

            “There you go.”

            “I’m not going to say I’m an expert on the new deal but it’s widely believed to have worked.”

            “Well, I am.  Let’s go with the National Industrial Recovery Act.  Do you know anything about economics?”

            “I took some courses in college yes.”

            “Well that act kept prices high by incurring minimum prices.  It also mandated that wages stay high as if raising wages will help the unemployment rate.”

            “Well that’s supposed to force unemployment but….wait we just went over that.”

            “How were people eating during the Great Depression?”

            “They were starving”

            “So when FDR killed 6 million pigs and destroyed 10 million acres of cotton to keep textiles and food prices high, do you think that helps starving people?”

            “Well, they had less money so couldn’t buy things.  Well….I mean…..Why did he do it?”

            “He believed in bottom up economics.  Keep the poorer farmers wealthy and everything will filter up.”

            “That doesn’t sound right.”

            “Because it’s not. Since farmers now only sold the government at inflated prices, they didn’t produce as much because they were already paid and it wasn’t worth it to them to sell to the general public at cheaper rates when they got such a high price from the government.”

            “Well if they’re being subsidized and don’t need the money, they should be nice and sell it cheap”

            “They weren’t allowed to sell it cheap.”

            “Well then they should just give it away.”

            “People aren’t as benevolent as you think.”
            “Clearly”

            “The Department of Agriculture reported that America didn’t produce enough food to sustain its population at the minimum subsidence level.”

            “This kind of goes against everything I learned in economics”

            “No it doesn’t.  You destroy supply with the same amount of demand, price goes up and it did.”

            “Yea but at the cost of a really shitty economy.”

            “Now you’re getting it.  The Agriculture Adjustment Act, destroying supply to keep wages and prices high, according to a Cornell study by Hames Boyle forced 2 million people into starvation.”

            “What happened to the greatest generation and the sacrifices they made?”

            “They were oppressed.  The Jews in concentration camps worked hard too but it was all for the government.  FDR did the same thing.  All production was for the government.  Businesses stopped producing for the private sector because they were unsure what the government would do next.  They even had a name for it.  They called it, ‘regime uncertainty’”

            “Yea but people were unemployed.  FDR didn’t force anyone to work like NAZI’s did to the Jews”

            “You’re right, that’s not a fair analogy.  FDR was a communist who sympathized with Joseph Stalin so hated the NAZI’s.  And people were losing work.  The increased labor laws led to 1.2 million people to become unemployed.  Almost as if FDR was providing an incentive for people to volunteer for the military.  I mean, you’re not working, what else are you going to do?”

            “But the people that did work made more money.  Unions also got stronger so worker’s weren’t exploited.”

            “No, even that didn’t work.  The Wagner Act of 1935 increased union labor by 15% but since the economy was smaller and less people were building, their wages fell by 30-40%.”

            “Everyone knows that Unions increase wages.  They fight for the little guy”

            “Then how come when union labor made up 3% of the labor force, real wages in manufacturing grew 50%.  This was from 1860-1890.  It raised another 37% from 1890 – 1914.  At this time, America was not the greatest economy but manufacturing jobs here did much better than their heavily unionized European counterparts.  Why do you suppose that was?”

            “So you’re saying the New Deal just transferred private sector jobs to public works jobs’

            “Yes”

            “So what?  People are still working”

            “It’s inherently wasteful because profit-loss rules don’t apply to governments.”

            “Oh right, Milton Friedman, the least efficient way to spend money is spending other people’s money on other people.”

            “That and FDR created a welfare state.”

            “If he was so bad, why did he get four terms?”

            “Better question is why did they pass a rule that presidents could never serve more than two terms after FDR if he was so good?”

            “That’s a weak argument.”

            “FDR was the original Democrat.  He created the welfare state.  He simply bought votes by giving away free shit to places he wasn’t popular and screwing the people who voted for him.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Why did the South, where people were poorest, receive the least assistance from FDR’s Works Progress Administration?”

            “The south is Republican”

            “Not in the 1930s and 40s when FDR was president it wasn’t”

            “Oh right, this is before the big switch.”

            “Which is also a myth but that’s a whole new topic”

            “So who did get the money from the WPA?”

            “The West where he was politically thin.  He paid railroad workers per mile of track laid so they made tracks in circuitous routes to jack the price up.”

            “I don’t believe this.”

            “FDR won 67% of the South vote.  Since they were politically secure, he went elsewhere.  That’s why businesses started changing their party affiliation or donating to his campaign so they could get WPA funding”

            “That does sound like the NAZI’s.  If you don’t fly the Swastika flag, you’re going to be attacked by the government.”

            “I would agree.  They also forced you to participate.  The Senate Committee found WPA employees had to contribute a portion of their salaries to the President’s reelection campaign to stay employed.  People who refused to pledge support for FDR or Republicans were thrown off relief roles so Republicans switched their registration to Democrats to keep their jobs.”

            “That’s awful, why didn’t the media do anything about this?”

            Larry gave Dana a dirty look and then said, “Right you’re a liberal. You actually think the media is fair and non-biased.  It’s all fake news but again FDR was a Stalinist not a NAZI so, like Stalin, he intimidated the press to print what he wanted.  For example, a Chicago journalist named James Gills criticized FDR’s court packing scheme and the FCC took his license away.”

            “Trump did that to Jim Acosta of CNN”

            “Wrong, Trump took away his white house credentials.  He was more than welcome to report anywhere else.  He could still practice journalism”

            “Right, yea, a little different but still fucked up of Trump”

            “No, Acosta can’t behave himself and attacked a woman who tried to take the microphone from him”

            “He didn’t attack her.  He just shoved her hand away.”

            “I’ve seen you feminists call being called ‘cute’ ‘molesting’ so it’s much worse than what feminists have labeled sexual assault.”

            “You really hate feminists don’t you?”

            “Yup, they destroyed the real feminist movement.  The real feminist movement was about equality.  Now, it’s about punishment and preferential treatment.”

            “What was the court packing scheme”

            “When the Supreme Court told FDR that aspects of his New Deal and other plans he wanted to enact were unconstitutional, FDR proposed a bill that if a Supreme Court Justice was 70 or older and didn’t retire or resign, one additional justice would be added.  This was in 1937 where six of the nine justices were over 70.”

            “What did they call unconstitutional?”

            “Does it matter?  The National Industrial Recovery Act & the Agricultural Adjustment Act”

            “Those were the two you had the biggest problem with.”

            “That’s not the point.  The point is we have checks and balances.  When the Supreme Court exercises their right to check the President, the President can’t  just add more justices to cancel them out because he didn’t like their decision”

            “Pretty sure that’s unconstitutional too.”

            “And FDR was the first president to do what Clinton and Obama loved to do.  Use the force of the federal government to investigate, spy and attack conservative people and organizations”

            “I’m afraid to ask like what”

            “The FBI was called to investigate the America First Committee.  They were a conservative organization that believed we should not enter World War II and let the Europeans and Asia destroy themselves while we build and build and become dominant.  FDR accused them of taking NAZI money and told FBI to find evidence.  No evidence was ever found about this.  So, there you go, the first Democrat to accuse Republicans of being NAZI’s and the first president to use the FBI to illegally monitor, spy and harass people who believe the President should be focused on making America great instead of trying to help other countries be great or not got worse.”

            “Oh come one!”
            “That’s right.  America First were the first people who wanted to make America great but instead of making America great again, it was to make it great a first time…”Dana rolled her eyes and Larry continued, “and FDR, just like his Democratic Successor many decades later, sicked the FBI on them.  Except Obama also sent the CIA and British intelligence at them too and illegally spied on them and used fake dossiers to trick courts into turning the illegal spying into legal spying.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  You are advocating for mass unemployment and a collapse of the American economy just like all the Democrats from FDR to Obama.”

            “Now I’m going to leave” as Dana walked out the door

            “Hey you asked me to make you hate me so I did.  You’re welcome” Larry said to nobody since Dana had already left. 

            Larry took a nap while Dana skulked home enraged.  She never told anyone about her conversation or encounter with Larry.  She just enjoyed a fresh start as her largest credit card was paid off.  Her financial management problems didn’t go away but it may take a little longer to rebuild that massive debt.