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 "Hell, send it on to me," Ray Ipsow put in. "Or even to somebody who really needs it, for there's sure enough of those."

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Ray's first reaction, like probably everybody's, is "I'll take some of that!" But at least he has the clarity of mind to pretend he's not all selfish greed like these evil capitalists and suggests that maybe some of that unspent wealth just sitting there not buying gold-paved dog runs might be used for some good. But now who's being naïve?! Scarsdale Vibe will surely have some standard rich-person argument against this suggestion. "Do you think rich people have enough to raise everybody out of poverty? How do you choose who gets it? Do poor people even deserve it? How do they prove they deserve the hand out? If they didn't want to be poor, they could pull themselves up by their bootstraps. It's my money; I don't owe it to anybody."

It's easy for a rich person to think, "I earned this money. I don't owe it to anybody." But it's also easy for everybody else to see how they almost certainly didn't earn the money at all and, in most cases, exploited the system to, in effect, steal as much of it as possible, or simply inherited it from fathers and grandfathers who did all of the theft themselves. And it's also certainly easy for them to think, "I worked hard for this money. Poor people must be lazy bastards who definitely don't deserve a hand out." Again, they're simply deluded in this thinking. Ultimately, they got their riches through theft, imperialism, or the exploiting of the labor classes who actually did do all of the hard work and were paid a pittance for it because of a system that forces other people to accept maybe less than a pittance if they can get it because they have families to feed and the industrialization of the world, and the move of large populations to urban centers, has sunk the ability of most people to earn a quiet, self-sustained life.

I hope Ray Ipsow winds up punching Scarsdale Vibe in the nose. Sure, it wouldn't be civil and I'm encouraging violence. But when rich people have taken away your every ability to counter their illicit behavior by controlling the means of production and by having police forces as their own attack dogs, what more can you do put pull back your fist and let one rip?

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 "You have to have some idea of the idle money out here. It can't all be endowments to the church of one's choice, mansions and yachts and dog-runs paved with gold or what have you, can it. No, at some point that's all over with, has to be left behind . . . and still here's this huge mountain of wealth unspent, piling up higher every day, and dear oh dear, whatever's a businessman to do with it, you see."

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This mini-speech by Scarsdale Vibe is worse than when he shot the old woman in the leg! I'm so mad at this cartoon villain right now! This is the kind of statement that Cobra Commander needed to spout to get young me to side with G.I. Joe! I would have been sitting there screaming "Go Cobra!" at the television because cartoon bad guys are always better than the heroes because they don't really espouse any really terrible moral philosophies on kid's cartoons. Cobra just screams things like, "I'm going to take over the world!" And I was all, "Oh no! G.I. Joe will stop you!" And then Zartan appeared and started speaking in his Australian accent and I was all, "Now wait a second. Who's this interesting guy?" And then The Baroness walked on screen in her vinyl pants and young me was all, "Now wait a second. Who's this interesting lady?" And then Destro was all, "I have made a master weapon to destroy the world but you have to find three different rare minerals located all over the world for it to work!" And little me was all, "Another guy with a metal head? Okay, weird, but maybe I wouldn't mind if G.I. Joe failed."

But if Cobra Commander had been all, "Look at all of my unspent wealth that I've managed to siphon out of the economy due to government regulations that help the people with capital to grow even more capital at the expense of the workers. What am I supposed to spend it on? I've already built a moon laser and a Terror Drome and a bunch of wacky (and highly expensive) murder vehicles and spent loads on crazy mercenaries with cool costumes and how much did that fucking ninja cost me? Like a zillion dollars, right?! What else am I supposed to spend it on? Solid gold dog runs, mansions, and yachts?! What's the point?!" Then I would have been all, "HEY! He's exploiting the system and causing pain, death, misery, and poverty through his selfish actions! Kill him, Joe! FUCKING MURDER THAT PRICK!"

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 "Expensive hobby," marveled the Professor. "Are there really such people?"

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"Expensive hobby"
It's probably less a hobby and a more a shrug and the thought, "What else am I going to do with all of this money and power that will distract me from the fact that all his money and power can't keep me from dying?" Of course the answer could be, "Making the world a better place." But nobody who is rich and powerful actually cares about that. I'm certain "Fuck poor people" is in the top five most common phrases spoken by the rich and the powerful.

"Are there really such people?"
Don't be naïve, Professor. You're selling technological inventions to one of them right now. A man who will probably treat the thing you invented—a thing that could probably make the world a far better place—as a toy and a source of income. You'd think people such as these would eventually be driven out of humanity, scolded and shamed for making the world a worse place for so many. But if Tom Joad couldn't ever punch them all in the face and take them all down, I don't see it ever happening.

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 "I know this fellow back in New Jersey," said Scarsdale Vibe, "who collects railroads. Not just rolling stock, mind, but stations, sheds, rails, yards, personnel, the whole shebang."

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If you're rich enough, your model train set can be an actual train. This is how a person had to play Monopoly before the game was invented in 1935. It was way more difficult to find other people to play with you. But when you did, you just took a bunch of money out of the bank, bought up all of their properties and assets, and sent them on their way while you looked for the next player. That's why it's called Monopoly! It's not called Free Market Fun with Proper Government Regulations to Make Things Fair for Consumers and Small Businesses. How fun would that game be?! Such a dumb game! It would be like playing Risk but respecting everybody else's borders and simply building up armies to defend your nation, just in case one of the other players gets some anti-social bug up their butt.