We would like to inform you that YOU, Americans, have been chosen! Friends, yes! You! Money will fill your gutters and clog your pipes and flood your homes, until your doors and windows shatter against your newly acquired currency. You will be wealthy, deservedly so. You amaze us all, for you have strolled idly through vast plazas, filled your hearts and carts with items to burn, lined your stomachs with plastic and resin to digest the world's garbage. Your shining eyes are so full of things. We love you for that.
        Think of it! Your faces will shine like coins once we've sold you the Brooklyn Bridge, Madison Square Garden, Grant's Tomb, the Statue of Liberty—all the landmarks of your people will curl up to fit in your wallet. Sift them, trade them, take them apart and build your own empire of city blocks and towers. You, too, can own real estate. If you will offer me your account number, I will pour these monies into the atmosphere, and they will burn to a fine ash. You will breathe it in and cash will grow in your lungs like leaves. Be green, open mouth, exhale goods and services, and security will be yours. You will choke on your own interest payments, blood on the bills, clots on the quarters. Yes, friends, yes. Invest. Roll over in your sweepstakes dreams.
        Invest in this sure thing over here; over there; don't look here; is that yours? What on earth is it doing in my pocket? Oh, no, it's mine; sign this. What's that? Here's that back, take this here, don't look—what? Out there, go! Go! Go!! I'll be in touch again when we're millionaires. We will celebrate with champagne and cut pieces of city out for our scrapbooks. We will swim like Scrooge McDuck in our very own cartoon currency. You deserve it all, for you have a flag and it is big and bold and substitutes nicely for your consciences. It fits neatly on a pin. It fits nicely in a song, along with eagles and other easy metaphors for sadness. It covers you at night, while you dream of Sean Hannity's hair and Tom Clancy's Irish protagonists with interchangeable names. It whispers to you of wealth management, tells you that you are dead guys with cool chains.
        Have we told you that you are heroes? You are certainly brave. After all, there are mirrors on the fronts of your magazines. After all, you have burned down the world and we would like to reward you. A person like you is sure to succeed with investments in oil, yes? Or perhaps we can interest you in land? I will let you in on a secret: we will teach you to copy dollar bills and increase your fortune one hundred fold. Overnight! Swim in seas of money! May it cling to your nostrils and mouths like a weed, may it cut off your breath and drink the soles of your boat shoes.
        We have been too polite to mention it, friends, but have you noticed that all you touch expands, grows wider, and multiplies? You are many, like a virus. We would like, in the end, to line the walls of the world with your fat heads on stakes. We would like, in the end, to cram your children into our Iron Maidens. We would, in the end, like to boil you in oil and sell you your own leavings. Would this be agreeable to you? In the folding of your prosperous years, you grow heavy and solemn as statues. This seems a difficult burden to bear. We would help you with your sorrows, clear the world of you, set fire to your feet and watch your smoldering ashes slowly build a cleaner idol. We would like to display you in our living rooms, as a cautionary tale for our children and so forth. We would pay you, of course. Isn't this the American way? Did we mention you should invest in gold now, before the world explodes and all your hopes turn to plasma? Your turn now, your turn and you, too, can be flush with cash and built of precious metals. You, too, can be a Jerry Bruckheimer film. And if you believe this, friends, then we have a bridge that we would very much like to sell you. Won't you step this way?

THE END