Dear George,
Blow the horn and beat the drum! Clang the cymbal, clack the castanets and shake the tambourine! Let us now celebrate the force that made us the greatest power on the face of the earth: accountancy. I sing of the bean counters, the number crunchers; those souls who for too many years were locked in the backroom with their eyeshades and sleeve protectors keeping track of inflow and outflow.
America took off the day the accountant moved into the boardroom. Their elevation sounded the death knell of the qualitative and the victory of the quantative. What changes this wrought! Where once profit was a by-product of producing a quality product at an affordable price, profit now became an end in itself. Gone was the archaic belief that a business increased its profit by improving its product, and in was the belief that the quickest way to increase profit was to cut costs and quality.
Our accountants also spiked the myth that profits should be sunk back into the company which would lead to the production of further capital. In its place they brought us an orgy of mergers and acquisitions, which increased corporate debt to the breaking point and added nothing to the economy. In short, they introduced the age of incestuous capitalism. As with biological incest, the end result was an explosion of degenerate idiocy.
But there is one area where accountants really shine: they are the Escoffers of cooked books. Need a profit to inflate the CEO's bonus? Cook up a batch of black numbers. Need to hemorrhage a little to justify cutting wages and benefits and spiking the company’s pension plan? Cook up a batch of red numbers. Why read novels when you can read annual reports?
We’re talking about some real American heroes, George. We’re talking about men and women who did for the corporation what Martin did for Blacks. Thanks to the bean counters, corporations can now proclaim, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God, we are free at last!”
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
9:41:53 PM
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