Hey Greenie, Wanna Get Rich?

Hey Greenie, Wanna Get Rich?
by David Bertelsen

Joe Bigwig straightened his Armani suit, set his sunglasses back down on his face, and drew a last, deep suck from his Cuban cigar, delighting once again on that plausible taste of communist sweat as he drew up to the bedraggled, dubious excuse for a human being that was holding up the lamp post.

"I said, you want some easy money?"

"Leave me alone", grunted the hippy.

"Are you one of those 'environmentalists'?

Greenie's eyes lit up.

"Good. You see, just between you and me...I need help. It's like this. I made my fortune importing bricks into the country- well, no ordinary bricks, we called them "mobile phones" back then, and I anticipated what everyone would want, and gave it to them. Problem is, everyone has a mobile phone nowadays, so I went on to selling central city apartments. Once again- everyone wanted it, and I gave it to them- but now we're all out of old office space to do up. So I need a new vision, I need to plan way into the future and find myself an idea that will keep me in business for more than just a decade."

"So what you hassling me for?"

"This morning, Greenpeace left a flier in my mailbox. Sickening communist claptrap, most of it, but the headline caught my attention...".

"What was that- no nuclear ships in our harbours?", guessed the Greenie, warming to the subject.

"No, the headline read, "For your grandchildren's children." Good, eh?"

"Well, obvious, isn't it- if we let you capitalist bastards run the place, there'll be no green spaces, no fresh air, no clean water for generations to come! Our great grandchildren will want to run in the outdoors, hike in the mountains, and it is our duty to give that to them!"

"YES!", boomed Bigwig. "You've said it!". "It's the business opportunity of a lifetime!"

"Hang on", muttered Greenie, "business opportunity?"

"Exactly!". "Let me let you in on a little secret. The best way to make money is not through inheritance, fraud, or welfare, as you socialists like to think. It's by finding something the people want and giving it to them! But I'm going to need your help. You up for that Greenie?

"You Greenies are certainly an adamant bunch. And you seem pretty damn certain about what people are going to want in the future. You've got vision and passion! Anyone who's prepared to scale fences to nuclear facilities and risk bombs from French Frogmen must hold their beliefs tightly. The future is green, and I intend to make a killing out of it. But first", Joe added, before the bewildered Hippy could respond, "We're going to have to do something about this bloody "Crowding Out" problem."

"Crowding out?"

"Yes- well imagine this. You spend $120 on your Big Day Out ticket, buying weeks in advance to make sure you don't miss out on all that good noise, mud and comradeship. You turn up on Day One, one hour before start time and are told sorry, venue's full. Turns out the bastards had given away free tickets all week, and the place was full of undeserving, unappreciative suits, kids and easy-rockers. How'd you feel?"

"Bummed."

"Well that's being crowded out, and that's just the sort of competition you and me are up against, Greenie. Unfair, government competition that owns all the good green spaces and let's people in free! How are we going to turn a buck to our 50,000 acre "Untouched by Man's Hands" Green Paradise if the damn government lets people into it's littered, uncared for "National Park" next door!"

"What, you want to charge people to enjoy nature?"

"Let me see if I understand you, Greenie. You did go to Big Day Out, right? And you did pay to get in? Yep, thought so. And you paid for your lunch? Good was it? Sorry- no meat in there, huh...What, you like that stuff? Oh well, each to his own. But my point is this... you pay for things every day, and the money's not usually being taken from you at bullet point- am I right?

You see, you socialists think that the best things in life should be free. Well, "for free" is code in my mind for "no bugger on the other end prepared to move his butt to make the experience worthwhile". Just look at the public health system mess.

Money isn't just money. It's frozen desire! It's the result that we accumulate when we effectively manage to produce something of value to others, and convince them to trade with us! Money's the purest, most moral form of free exchange of value ever invented! The more that it is used, the more we are free to specialise, and to spend our lives creating and not looking for ways to exchange value- money makes it easy."

"So what you saying", grumbled the Hippy, certain that what he was hearing was wrong, but blurring over the sensation that there was no logical response to this prick's capitalist rants.

"That YOU know what people want in the future, and I know how to sell it to them! If we could just get the government out of the way, we could all be happy! We could ensure there is enough green space in this country to house a planet-full of Amazonians, AND line our pockets at the same time!"

"But I don't care for money".

"That's OK, I don't care for the environment!. That's exactly my point. We'll trade!"

"Yeah right, on your terms! You suck me dry, squeeze my green ass 'til it pops like GM modified corn, destroy my credentials in front of my fellow green-warriors, and spend your new-found riches on helicopters to visit the chain restaurants and leisure parks you scatter all through this so called nature paradise...try pulling the wool over somebody else's eyes- money and the environment don't mix."

Joe Bigwig sighed, took another tug on his cigar, and meandered off down the road. Damn Greenie's right, he thought. Money and environment don't mix....

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