SCENE:   Mitch BERG is fixing some broken chain link fence.   Avery LIBRELLE pedals down the alley on a recumbent bike, catching him by surprise.  

LIBRELLE:  Merg!

BERG: Ugh…er, hey, Av…

LIBRELLE:  Shut up.  Billionaires are evil. 

BERG:  Huh.  So why’s that…

LIBRELLE:  They pay no taxes! It’s wrong for a billionaire to pay less taxes than a teaching assistant!

BERG:  Their employees and subsidiary businesses pay immense taxes – and they personally defray taxes by using deductions and business losses – same as your progressive plutocrats.  

LIBRELLE: That’s just wrong.  

BERG: OK.  Put a pin in that.  Did you see where Ilhan Omar’s personal fortune dropped from $30 million down to well under $100K?

LIBRELLE:  Yeah?  So?  It was an accounting error.  

BERG:  Right.  The error being that the accountant didn’t consider…what, now?

LIBRELLE:  Deductions and…

BERG:  Go on?

LIBRELLE:  (Mouth flaps like a trout on the dock)

BERG:  Same as the billionaires, right?

LIBRELLE:  Pouncer!

BERG:  Nah.  But if we find out that her and Hubby Number Four used that “mistaken” valuation to get credit, I’ll be pouncing….

(But LIBRELLE has already pedaled away)

And SCENE

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2026 at 8:42 am and is filed under Business, The Economy and The Markets, Crime and Punishment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.