He'd been pretty good, for a while, for himself, the one constant rant was that he was being taken to the cleaners by his third ex wife, $14K in child support per month, he'd had it, had enough...but his 40 year old daughter had moved out, he'd paid a years worth of her rent up front in Cochrane to get rid of her, given her a BMW, life should be looking up...
Of course it was too good to last...
L******* - a female friend of his, "friend", if you get my meaning, had come to talk with him about maybe topping up his daughter's allowance, an extra $100 per month so she could pay for gas to get to and from work...if he cared...
He loses his shit on her. It's the last straw, his ex wife, lawyers, of his three adult children, she's the best, but she's no fucking trophy, let me tell you, a 240 lb alcoholic, loud-mouthed shit with two slut brats in tow, $1200 dollar a month allowance to live in his house, $300 a month in speeding tickets, wouldn't get a job, refused, too busy, lazy, fetched groceries and liquor from the restaurant, finally had to be paid off to leave, now she wants more? We can all hear him screaming, full volume, top of his shrieking Italian lungs, at her in the private room, where she used to...
...anyways, the night sours for us all, he's screaming all night, kicking things, swearing, slamming doors, menace and violence mark his shadow on the floor, he's darkly hatching plans...
L*******, she calls G*** to apologize, none of us will have it, she should have known better, if, when we see her next we'll give her a piece of our mind. Fucking shithead. Her 10 minutes of glory in the private room to broach things no sane person would suggest - I mean, really, why the fuck should you be expected to support your 40 year old child? Really? In addition to ex wife and $14,000 towards the two youngest half-wits-in-the-rearing...We've all had it, we all pay the price, all night long, 8 hours of a fuming lunatic frothing in rage, spitting, throwing shit at anyone that comes near him...it's too much.
The night, eventually, passes, but it raised a couple of thoughts inside me...he's a multi-millionaire, the classic immigrant success story, yet of his 3 adult children all in some way or another are reliant on social services for their well being. Subsidized housing, shelters, mental health treatments, healthcare (none work or pay taxes) foster care, prisons...We are all, collectively and in perpetuity, paying down the debt on his ill gotten gains. And in the case of the daughter there's another generation upcoming, two living generations of debt so that he can remain rich...there's a metaphor here.
The oil sands, creators of billions of dollars, tens of billions of dollars in revenues that are moved out of the country to disappear into the hands of investors, shareholders, presidents of foreign companies, when they are gone it will be us, the taxpayers and citizens, left behind to pay trillions to clean up their mess.
This does not seem to me to be capitalism, but in it's ugliest sense it is.
We really need a better fucking system.