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A very nearly true story....
I first met Opti-Bob playing the nickel slots in Vegas.
"I always win", he said, waving the girl over for another complimentary wine cooler.
I sat down, hoping to learn his trick to beating the house. While Bob bragged of large jackpots and comped high-roller suites, I watched his every move, fearing I might miss the key to his gaming mojo. Bob dropped another nickel in the slot and said that sweaty showgirls carved his name on the Flamingo bar.
"Tell you what", Bob said, while absently pulling the handle of his trade. "You spring for the bottomless chicken wing platter at the Nugget and I'll tell you the story of my success."
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"I was an economist by trade... A FAMOUS, RIGHT WING, economist", Bob told me. "I have a gift for numbers".
"You see", Bob told me, "unlike most men, I deal in numbers, not as concrete symbols, but as abstract and fluid concepts". He said that he'd always known that there was a way to make those stubborn little symbols do what he wanted them to do. As an economist, and most importantly, as a Right Wing economist, Bob knew that it was he, not the numbers, who was in charge.
It was in the summer of 1983, while working as a clerk for Reagan Administration economic advisors, when inspiration struck. Falling onto Bob the way great breakthroughs always do to great men. Like the apple on Newton. Like Steve Martin bending that arrow over his head.
Bob had trained at the feet of the masters: Stockman, Friedman, Greenspan, Mankiw... The Supermen. And he had learned the secrets of these pioneers well. So well, in fact, that it was Bob himself who is credited with discovering the General Theory of Perpetual Optimism. A breakthrough in conservative economics so revolutionary that it opened a whole new paradigm, not only in the world of economics, but in political circles, as well.
The same theory he now used to win in Vegas.
Not being as brilliant as Bob, (who is?) please bear with me as I attempt to give the reader a rudimentary example of the genius of Bob's first breakthrough: "Take an economic indicator, say housing starts, for example. Let's say that housing starts for Spring 1983 were at 190,000. And that Summer 1983 starts were at 185,000." Bob, canny sort that he is, instantly realized that those numbers showed a marked decline in activity. But Bob also knew in his heart that such decline was impossible so long as adherents of the conservative ideology were in power -- The numbers had to be wrong.
And that's when then serendipity bumped into Bob like a 747 into a New York skyscraper.
"Eureka," Bob cried, "all we need to do is to revise the Spring 83 numbers from 190,000 down to 180,000 and that makes Summer 83 at 185,000 a quarter of economic growth." Simple Revision was the answer. The ramifications of such a profound breakthrough in conservative economics was staggering. Bob's General Theory of Perpetual Optimism had done for conservative ideology what Einstein had done for physics.
Bob's breakthrough resembled Einstein's Relativity in that it took economic indicators from a concept of an absolute fixed frame of reference to understanding that nothing in space can be considered at rest and fixed. Not energy. Not matter. Not even economic data. Not even dollars and sense. Revision, not of current data, but of old and useless numbers.
The beauty of the General Theory of Perpetual Optimism, like most conservative thought, is in it's sheer simplicity and it's capacity for universal application in any economic forecast or interpretation. It didn't take long before Right-Wing economists were applying Bob's General Theory of Perpetual Optimism and creating Republican magic in every realm of the American economic world.
Bob's genius made it possible to live in a world where cutting taxes always increased revenues. A magical world where GDP always grew, job losses were actually amazing job creation, debts would never have to be repayed, and where borrowing was actually measured as growth.
I was still kind of confused. Bob changed the subject and ordered a double Glenfiddich on my tab.
Eating teriyaki chicken wings and wiping the grease on the table, his tale then took a detour, due south.
"Beer", he said to the waitress, as if it were her name.
Bob was 29 when he rocked the world of conservative thought. Now, at 50, he was a footnote. A has been. At best a curiosity, as out of date and quaint as the slide rule.
The curse of genius is that it usually comes so very young in life and leaves the man who was lightning rod with the hollow realization that life would always be measured by something that would continue to grow dimmer in his rearview mirror. That he would never touch such flame again.
But Bob knew that he had something left. One last trip to the perimeter. One more brief moment where he would be invited to sit in with the A team, and kick his feet up on mahogany conference tables, and tell off color jokes with men of commerce.
But what?
He took up wearing bow ties for awhile, but that didn't help. Bashing liberals on the internet from his cubicle only reminded him of the emptiness of fleeting success. Of being a flash in the pan. He sat at home watching Wall Street and pretending to be Michael Douglas night after night, TV dinners piled next to his bed. The Bowflex™ he'd ordered while drunk on Milwaukee's Finest was now just a place to hang his short sleeve Arrow shirts. The Thighmaster™ never even made it out of the box.
Even Fox News didn't cheer him up.
And then it hit him. He'd go to that place where men with hair plugs and soft bellies that refuse to allow shirttails to stay tucked could rise above their mediocrity and prove their worth by risking that which they valued most in the world -- their money. He'd go to Las Vegas and reawaken his magical gift for numbers. He wouldn't go to gamble. Gambling is for ordinary men. He'd discover a way to always win.
Every man who has ever caught the belly-job for an inside straight on a last card hot streak has dreams of hitting Vegas and cleaning up. Few have the courage, or the gift for numbers to carry it out. Bob is one of those few.
Finally, years of wadded up scribbling behind him, Opti-Bob again had a plan. And Bob liked to call himself -- "the man with the plan." And he says it constantly -- to dealers, bartenders, drunks, busboys -- I guess geniuses are allowed to be annoying.
So, after years of training in the "dismal science" Bob knew that his long years of dealing in the realm of numbers, Right Wing numbers, gave him the edge he needed to defy the Vegase edge and develop a system that would insure he always walked away ahead. He'd again be a legend. He'd beat the house.
Bob, master of the General Theory of Perpetual Optimism bought his superior intellect an economy flight to Vegas to prove that the man who discovered the General Theory of Perpetual Optimism was still in the game. He would do it by doing what no man had ever done before. What all other men, lesser men, would call the impossible. He would devise a foolproof mathematical system that would allow him to beat the odds. To once again beat the system with his beloved numbers.
And I was here to learn his system.
After an entire evening of buying Bob drinks, driving him to pick up his dry cleaning, carting his fat ass back to the cheap-ass room at the US hostel he said he "kept to remain incognito and throw off the floor bosses" I finally coaxed Bob into taking me to the casino and explaining how his "system" worked. He said I could learn it in fifteen minutes. My ship had finally come in. I, too, would be "the man with the plan."
Nobody bad like Bob.
"How much money you got" he asked. "About Ten Grand", I told him.
"Go get us $10,000 in chips and meet me at the blackjack table," he said, "lets go show them how it's done."
We agreed that Bob would take the first $2500 in winnings -- 25% -- in return for teaching me his system. "I guarantee you will walk out of here with more than you started with" he said with a deadpan confidence.
I handed him my wad, as quickly as I'd pulled the lever for Bush-Cheney.
He threw $2,500 onto the table and smiled as a queen popped up. Dealer hit at 14 and busted. Bob pocketed his 25% and motioned for me to sit down. "Bet a thousand a hand," he coached. I lost with a 17. Then proceeded to lose four more in a row.
Down to half my stake. Bob put his hand on my shoulder, "hang out a hand," he said.
"Now, and this is important -- take your Master Card and go and bring back another $7,500 in chips. It's time for you will learn the secret of the General Theory of Perpetual Optimism
"You will learn how to be a right-wing economist before this night is over."
Excitedly, I scrambled back to the table and threw the entire $12,500 on the table. "Bet $500" Bob said.
He watched casually as I lost again. "You aren't too lucky, are you", he cackled, "time for me to go."
"Whattya mean "it's time to go"?" I was too dumbfounded to be pissed. Nobody could be that full of shit. It must be me, I must be missing something.
"How much money you got," he said, as if I were a bug. "Twelve Grand, Right? You're up Two Grand in less than an hour. I'd say you ought to be thanking me tonight.
"Up two grand? I'm fucking down Five Grand. What the fuck are you talking about, Bob???"
"How much you got in your pocket? Twelve Grand, right? Means you are up Two Grand from the Ten you started with. You aren't too good with numbers, are you?"
"Are you fucking nuts? I borrowed $7500 from Master Card. I'm down Five Grand you old, fat, baldheaded, drunken fuck."
You are only down Five Grand when you pay Master Card back. Right now you are up 20% in less than a half hour. That's amazing growth. This is exactly how the Bush Administration measures growth in GDP. Do you think they worry about a little debt?"
He muttered something about whiney liberals being too stupid to understand economic growth. "You ought to move back to France". Then he said, "I suppose you expect me to share some of my hard earned winnings with you, you fucking socialist," Even after I've just taught you the General Theory of Perpetual Optimism?
He looked at me like I had just taken a dump in my pants, and walked off, turning back once, shouting "go back to Cuba you no good fucking communist."
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