January 9, 2014
Joy-Ann Reid
The Miami Herald
3511 NW 91st Street
Miami, FL 33172

RE: I search, alas in vain, for more sensitive synonyms to ohmadahn to stupid or dumber than a box of hammers or just plain dumb to describe your column - Zounds! Who would believe it? – about the economy and poverty in today’s Miami Herald.

Ms. Reid.

“Exit strategy? I don’t need no stinking exit strategy.”

Lyndon Johnson [Landslide Lyndon to his nearest and dearest] started 2 wars.

That one ended can be proved by the existence of a black marble wall in Washington, D.C. It has 58,492 names on it. We were importuned by Johnson’s predecessor to “pay any price, bear any burden” to secure the blessings of liberty even for those who were not particularly clamoring for them. [3weeks before Kennedy was assassinated by a Marxist loon he acquiesced in the murders of Diem and Nhu. Maybe Malcolm X was right about chickens coming home to roost.]

Honest. You could look it up.

The other one, the one that is 50 years old this week, the one that has no end, the fabulously successful, hugely popular, widely applauded, often imitated but never duplicated War on Poverty goes on and on and on and on. And on.

Honest. You could look it up.

Since you know nothing of Economics and even less of History, since I am still searching for a phrase not quite as harsh as Homerically dumb – Yes, it’s you I am talking about – I’ll type slowly.

32 years before D-Day on Poverty, 32 years before the whistles blew and a whole army went over the top to charge 5 miles of machine guns a la the Somme, Franklin Roosevelt was elected President. He promised to end deficit financing and to balance the budget.

Honest. You could look it up.

After 6 years of beating the American economy about the head and shoulders said economy was, by any and all measurable standards, worse off than it was when he was inaugurated. It was as if he “stood in a bucket and tried to pick himself up by its handle”. [Boeing going to 3 shifts at its Wichita plant to build B-17s marked the end of the Depression.]

. You could look it up.

Men digging ditches so that other men could fill them up so that other men could re-dig them is no way to run an airline or, Heaven forfend, an economy, or a country.

Honest. You could look it up.

One of the great gifts of modern American Liberalism, indeed the one that enables them to push on and on and on never mind that the Cuisinart of History sits by ready to work its magic on inter alia, “Shovel Ready”., “Cash for Clunkers”, and endless “Summers of Recovery”, is the ability to never ever let facts interfere with an argument. Thus, Lyndon Johnson was able to say “Just because it didn’t work last time doesn’t mean it won’t work this time particularly since this time my pal, William McChesney Martin, will give me more money than I can count to give my people the good life”.

Honest. You could look it up.

Since I know that modesty is a very overrated virtue I can proclaim that I “created” more net new jobs in the 1980s than all the member companies of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It was easy; they “created” none while I was responsible for more than 400.

I am very proud of my charitable contributions, of my altruistic and eleemosynary activities. I can assure that they had nothing to do with my activities in the 4 states that resulted in paydays for workers.

This may come as a surprise to you but the main motivating factor was profit .Not just profit but riches beyond the reach of Croesus. I wanted to make so much money that I could afford to spend $104,000 [lunch included] on my 2 children’s tuition bills. Plus, I wanted to take my family to Hawaii for 17 days over Christmas vacation. [Maybe I chose the wrong career. Maybe I should have been a community activist. I must tell you that I have known since 1959 that the number of states in the Union and the number of stars on the flag are equal. 50. Also, if Austrian is spoken in Austria wouldn’t that mean that Paraguayanians speak Paraguayese while Urguayans speak Uruguayese? I have no idea what is spoken in Upper Volta.

Honest. You could look it up.

Try to remember the last time you were hired by someone who had less money than you.

Repeat after me.

You can’t make poor people rich by making rich people poor.

You can look it up.

I’ll take exception – the exception being you - to the great Dr. Johnson’s remark that “such stupidity [stupidity such as yours] is not to be found in nature”.

Relax. I am not going to take the wise advice of your pal, Martin Bashir. I will not have you flogged, “pickled”, and have someone take a dump in your mouth prior to having someone pee in your eyes. I wouldn’t ever think of it. God forbid that I wojuld even mention it.

Also, until I have evidence to the contrary, I shall not call you, as Ed Schultz of The Ed Show did of Laura Ingrahm, a “slut”.

Honest. You can look it up.







Kevin Smith