“TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS” (SHORT STORY)
Ted Canard thinks he can do no wrong.
Yet here he is on a New York sidewalk, his life ebbing away.
Moments earlier, he was revelling in his success, blind to the inequity around him.
“Trickle-Down Economics” is an incisive short story about the problems of inequality.
How does this happen in the heart of the Upper East Side?
How do two worlds collide with such sudden violence?
2,000 words / 8 minutes of visceral reading pleasure
Keep scrolling to read online.
‘One of the great artifices of Satan is to induce men to believe that he does not exist.’ John Wilkinson
STEFANO BOSCUTTI
TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS
Copyright 2024 Stefano Boscutti
All Rights Reserved
Ted Canard stumbles and crumbles to the sidewalk, a broken green glass Coca-Cola bottle plunged into his neck.
Gasping, his eyes teary as his life splinters before him. As memories ricochet between the shrieks and yells of passersby.
He hears a woman cry for someone to call an ambulance. He’s not a medical man but he cannot see the point. He can feel the warm blood spill down his chest, soaking through his Ascot Chang shirt.
How can this happen on the Upper East Side? How can this happen only steps away from his favourite restaurant? How can this happen to him?
Ted Canard had been enjoying his life. Having recently retired at fifty-one from the hedge fund where he’d spent almost all his working life, he was looking forward to relaxing, travelling to his summer home in Sardinia, writing a book about how the economy really works, investing in some defiant startups with monopolistic ambitions.
He’d just come from a splendid six-course lunch at George-Michel with a former colleague. The sea urchin from Santa Barbara was a little bland, neither sweet nor minerally. The saving grace was the 2017 Bernadeau Les Nourissons. Lush, expansive, balanced and multi-layered, a fine wine.
Ted had ordered a second bottle as the conversation flowed.
‘What all those art-history majors don’t understand is that it’s investors like us who provide all the economic value in the world.’
His former colleague agreed as he drained his glass.
‘Investors like us create the value that allows the middle-class to enjoy their lives. If it wasn’t for us, they’d still be using typewriters and slide rulers.’
The sommelier silently filled their glasses.
‘I was trying to explain to my nephew why the investor class was the driver of everyone’s economic success. That when our money is invested in productive businesses it makes life better for everyone. He didn’t understand a word I was saying.’
‘Most young people these days are fools.’
‘Most citizens are consumers, not investors. They don’t recognise the benefits to consumers that come from investment. From the critical work we do. From the tremendous value we create.’
‘You should write a book.’
Ted had smiled and nodded in agreement as the dissected black forest devil’s food cake was placed at their table for dessert. Valrhona dark chocolate forest silhouette hovering over sour cherry sorbet and soft almond meringue.
Like all the diners that day, Ted was wilfully blind to the growing economic inequality all around him.
He was not merely a member of the one percent. He was a member of the point one percent. His wealth in the hundreds of millions of dollars - albeit mostly tied up in numerous tax-free investments. He lived in an Upper East Side townhouse just off Fifth Avenue, and near the office of the private-equity firm he helped build into a multi-billion dollar business by buying, fixing and selling off companies at tremendous profits.
He often talked about how he would roll up his sleeves and work in the trenches of these companies, pushing for innovation and opening new markets. Truth was he would typically retrench thirty to forty percent of the workforce, liquidate any pension funds, extend supplier payments, load up companies with discounted debt and take them to market.
When someone does great evil they must convince others they’re doing great good. Or else how can they live with themselves?
Ted’s greatest claim to goodness was working with the Ball Corporation to reshape an aluminium soda can so it bent inward at the top. That little taper allowed manufacturers to make the same size can with a tiny bit less aluminium.
It saves a fraction of a penny on every can, Which means the economy can produce more cans with the same amount of resources. In Ted’s mind, it made every American who buys a soda can a little bit richer because their paycheck buys more.
In Ted’s worldview, the simple fact those savings go straight to the company’s senior executives as massive salary increases and bonuses isn’t considered. The simple fact that an American chief executive earns three-hundred-and-forty times as much as a typical worker isn’t weighed. The simple fact that monopolies hold markets and consumers hostage while extracting inordinate profits and blocking innovation isn’t examined. The simple fact that governments repeatedly use taxpayer funds to bail out over-leveraged banks and financial institutions isn’t calculated. The simple fact that tax cuts go to the rich at the expense of the poor isn’t factored. The simple fact that workers’ wages have stagnated or fallen isn’t assessed.
Ted had long avoided going downtown or even visiting midtown. Too many tourists, too many homeless people. He had read in the financial press that New York City had reached the highest level of homelessness since the Great Depression of the 1930s. More than three-hundred-and-fifty-thousand men, women and children with nowhere to live.
Ted saw these people as mentally ill or vagrant drug addicts - or both - pocketing government handouts while making plenty of cash begging on the streets. Why else would they live that way? The simple fact they have no choice never crosses his mind. The simple fact that poverty makes the wealthy richer never enters his mind.
People like Ray had become homeless through no fault of their own. Ray had joined the Army straight out of high school. Month after month of constant blast exposure on the Afghanistan frontline. Day after day of trying to cope with the stress of combat.
Ray had been trained to kill. So that’s what he did. Saving teammates, grappling with Taliban fighters, beating them to death. Awarded medals of valour, of honour. He left the army disabled with severe hearing loss and lost his way.
He found himself in a homeless camp in Texas among thousands of lost souls. He was offered a hundred dollars cash by the state government to get on a bus to lord knows where.
His veteran’s disability pension had dried up. A hundred bucks is a hundred bucks. So he took the money, boarded a bus and fell asleep. When he woke up he was in New York City.
Ray spent a week crisscrossing the city in search of a safe place. It didn’t take long before he started begging for spare change on the streets. He wore his dirty camouflage uniform, filthy cap upturned in front of him with a couple of coins scattered inside. Dragged a cardboard sign around with him where he’d scrawled an anxious message in a nervous hand: Disable veteran. Anything will help!! Thnak you. God bless
He was hungry. He was always hungry. He carried a classic ten-ounce green glass Coca-Cola bottle with him everywhere. Found all the places where he could fill it with water for free. Whenever he was hungry, he would take a sip. The heavy fluted glass felt good in his hand, the white imprinted logo felt right. It felt like America before everything started falling apart.
In Afghanistan he’d fought in a war he didn’t understand. Destroying lives and tearing a country apart. Returned more confused than ever. America had changed. It felt like a battlefield. It became more difficult to make out what people were saying. Sounds became muffled, distant.
In the past few weeks, Ray had seen the homeless population swell. Parts of downtown were becoming dangerous. Too much competition, too much aggression. Too many thieves.
He’d started moving to midtown. Then further uptown, away from all the crazies. Figured the richer the passersby, the more they’d give. What he didn’t know was the richer the person, the stingier they are with their money.
Ted had already left the restaurant and was ambling home when Ray knelt down on the sidewalk in front of a hoarding. Placed his upturned cap in front of him, his glass Coca-Cola bottle to one side, his cardboard sign close to his chest. His head lowered.
Ted’s smile tightened when he spotted him. What was a homeless man doing in his neighbourhood? What was a beggar doing here? What was the world coming to?
Why don’t the authorities do something? Why don’t the police arrest these scammers? Why pay taxes if they can’t solve the problem?
Ted isn’t an angry man but he wanted to lash out at this useless sycophant, this pariah. So he kicked his cap, sending the paltry coins flying and smashing the contoured Coca-Cola bottle against the hoarding.
Ray’s combat training took over as he leaped on Ted, dragging him down to the hard concrete pavers, pummelling him with his fists, grabbing the broken body of the Coca-Cola bottle and jamming it into the front of his neck.
The sharp-edged shard slices through muscles, ligaments, tendons and nerves. Severs both major arteries. Ted clutches at his throat as his body goes into shock and he crumbles to the sidewalk.
His life flows out of him as the blood flows out through the neck and lip of the broken Coca-Cola bottle, pooling over the sidewalk and trickling into the gutter.
Are you a helpful person?
Did you enjoy this short story? Shoot it to your friends. Blast it to your enemies. Thanks for helping spread the word.
Copyright 2024 Stefano Boscutti
All Rights Reserved
The moral rights of the author are asserted.
No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or copying and pasting, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing.
Stefano Boscutti acknowledges the trademark owners of various products referenced in this work. The publication or use of these trademarks is not authorised or sponsored by the trademark owner.
This is a work of fiction. While many of the characters portrayed here have counterparts in the life and times of various hedge fund employees and others, the characterisations and incidents presented are totally the products of the author’s rapacious imagination. This work is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It should not be resold or given away. Thank you for your support. (Couldn’t do it without you.)
Discover novels, screenplays, short stories and more by Stefano Boscutti at boscutti.com