Speaking of Railroads

[Michael Bailey]

the novel JR has a passage or two where the kid is talking about the
capitalist landscape:
for everything you see, there's a millionaire of it - see that chair,
somewhere there's a millionaire of chairs,
see that car, somewhere there's a millionaire of cars...

so the teacher gives him a big speech about how the best things in
life are free, and points to the rising moon
saying "there's no millionaire of that, is there?"

but although JR goes along with her to be nice (he's really quite a
nice kid, except in pursuit of business)
he mentions later to the frustrated composer guy how the white light
in the night sky she was pointing to was
really the sign from a Carvel's ice cream parlor...

how this is perhaps germane to this thread, and the thread to IV, is that

1) many folks have a justifiable suspicion of the very wealthy.
Balzac wrote that "behind every great fortune,
there is a great crime" and just the mention of a billionaire is cause
for, if not alarm, at least the making of the sign
of the cross or its equivalent in whichever tradition one subscribes
to.  You don't have to be a Marxist to notice that.

2) the wealthy played mean and nasty games with railroads, and in fact
the notoriety
they gained in these pursuits was part of the impetus for
trust-busting and so forth.
So for Buffett to be buying a railroad brings back bad memories of
those old plutes.

3) looking at the facts, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett
for instance
 Of all the billionaires I've read about, Buffett seems to be fairly
innocuous compared to most.
- I think the guy who invented Beanie Babies is a billionaire, so
maybe he's a little more harmless?
Although who knows what sinister intents lie behind those plush toys?

4) If there is a "millionaire of anything you care to mention", what
is Buffett the [b]illionaire of?
Maybe of "the market" itself?

4) Buffett doesn't seem to have a "Mickey Wolfmann" guilt complex, but
he is giving away a lot of money.
There are Carnegie libraries all over the place - he was already the
millionaire of steel, but he lives on in his Hall
and libraries... personally, I'd say too bad ole Buffett doesn't want
to do something like that...

5) just to fanatically winkle out a new subtext in IV:
 -- in keeping with the hideous wrong turn that Reagan 'n' them
hijacked America into taking,
"They" even subvert the tradition of the obscenely rich at the end of
their lives getting into philanthropy -
"They" won't even let Wolfmann give away his own money!  He's
kidnapped and drugged and forced back into business as usual!