Condor Options

INT. CLASSROOM.

CAPITALISTS are assertive, industrious, and creative teenagers, trying to make up in earnestness what they lack in wisdom and good judgment.  As the scene opens, Capitalists are pacing the room, clearly panicked.

Capitalists: Oh, s#@t, this is not good.  This is not good.

UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT peeks its head in the doorway.  United States Federal Government is best described as bipolar, alternating as it does between a personality that strives to protect its citizens from dangers both foreign and domestic, and a personality that exhibits apathy and malign neglect.

United States Federal Government: Hey.  What’s going on in here?  We heard a ruckus.

Capitalists: What, nothing, uh, don’t you knock?

USFG: Omigod, is that our economy lying there?  What did you do?

Capitalists: What? No, that’s, that’s just housing.  You said we could have housing.

USFG: First of all, we said you could borrow housing, and only because you promised to make it better.  Second, that’s clearly the whole economy right there!

Capitalists: Yes, well, the project got bigger than we expected, and we couldn’t finish our work without bringing in some other sectors.  We did make it better though, look how much bigger housing is now!

USFG: What is that noise?  Ack, watch out!

Housing collapses.

USFG: !

Capitalists: Hmm, yes well, fortunately we accounted for this.

USFG: What!?  Accounted for nothing – look at the economy, it’s a disaster!

Capitalists:  Hmm.  Boy, that’s awful.  Okay well, remember you said we had a deal.  You promised to let us do whatever we wanted and that nothing bad would happen to us.

USFG: Yes, but we didn’t think you’d screw it up this badly.  After the last time, it took us all of the 1990s to get things cleaned up and working properly.

Capitalists shrug, stare at the floor.

(Beat.)

USFG: Ugh.  This is horrible, and everyone’s going to blame it on us, just like always-

Capitalists: -well you know how we get with no adult supervision around-

USFG: Shut up.  How are we going to fix this?  We’ll have to rebuild the economy ourselves, apparently, so give it back and we’ll start some infrastruct-

Capitalists: -mmm, can’t.

USFG: What?

Capitalists: Sorry, we can’t give it back.  Our arm is caught in there, holding the MacGuffin switch down.  If you take the economy back, the whole thing will blow.

(Beat.)

USFG: (Sighs.)  Fine.  What do you need to deactivate the switch?

Capitalists: Prolly just a term auction facility and a bigger discount window.

USFG: Guys, we’re not exactly rolling in cash right now.  We’re still recovering from that big safari we went on last year.  The locals were a little wilder than we’d anticipated.

Capitalists: Yeah, how was it?  Did you say hi to Chalabi for us?  Great guy.

USFG: Anyway, here you go.  We’ll cut rates, too, so that should fix everything.  Can we have the economy back now?

Capitalists: Hmm, that’s strange.

USFG: What?

Capitalists: This thing is so complex inside.

USFG: Just let go, okay?

Capitalists: Almost there, it just seems like we’re caught on something…

USFG: Let us have a look.  (Beat.)  Oh no, your sleeve is still caught, wait don’t move, you’re shaking the whole thing to pieces-

Capitalists: Let us out!

USFG: -wait you’re going to destroy the-

Capitalists: If only we had more liquidity!

USFG: -okay you can have whatever you want, just don’t hurt the workers-

Capitalists: Thank you.  Ahem. Here are our requirements.  You’ll need to back all new debt, guarantee deposits, buy up or pay for all the damage we did to housing, and cut interest rates some more.  And nationalize us a little bit so that we don’t get harmed by all this mess.  And hire a bunch of us to help fix the problems.  And we’ll probably think of some other items later.

USFG: You bastards.

Capitalists: Whatever, you’re the ones who laid off the hall monitors and made recess twice as long.

USFG: You bastards, we should punish you for this.  (Shudders.)  That is to say, we wanted to give you this money in the form of tax cuts, not like this!  (Shudders.)  Ok, here you go.

Capitalists: Thanks.

(Beat.)

USFG: So?

Capitalists: What?

USFG: Can we have the economy back now?

Capitalists:  Hmm, not sure.  We might hold onto it for awhile longer.  We’ll let you know.

CUT TO BLACK.