I have not the slightest reluctance about going to a restaurant with 14 friends and picking up the check for all of us if the meal is good and the cost is $12 per person.  I am delighted with the chance to do that.  $180.  A good bargain, and I am happy.  But I will not go into a restaurant and pay half that for a lunch for two.  I prefer surgery on my hand and wallet, if I can get it done at a cost-effective $4000.

I am not a classic cheapskate.  When I was in my early teens, I would sometimes walk miles to find a candy store operator who would charge me 5 cents for a 5 cents candy bar.  I always wished death on the person who was charging 6 cents.  I would trudge through wind and rain to find the man with the right price.   Given the wear and tear on my shoes and socks, I wasn’t saving money.  I refuse to be cheated, however slightly.   It has nothing to do with being a cheapskate.

I hate financial dishonesty above all other forms of dishonesty.  I know there are worse things – but not for me.  I hate Bernie Madoff, not because he drove people to ruin but because he raised financial wrongdoing to a new high.   He sometimes took $millions from people who were left with $millions, but what does that matter?   He drove some people into poverty but that was no worse in my eyes than leaving some of his victims with $millions.   It was not the victims for whom I felt sorry but Bernie at whom I felt blind fury.

I am heading to Florida at the end of the month to examine some properties.   Prices are running about $14,000 for 2-bedroom homes in gated communities.  I can’t understand how they can sell for so little.  I am trying to keep in mind that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  I have been told that before the housing industry collapse these homes sold for $140,000 but if I find out this is a lie and that the initial prices of these houses was $50,000, I will lose all interest.  I am not so much interested in a bargain as I am in genuine value, and I don’t want the value of the homes misrepresented.     Why should I buy a $50,000 home for $14,000 anyway?   Aren’t all homes sold, even in the best of times, at a price more than triple their true value?    I don’t determine value by considering standard prices.   Why would I buy a brand new Ferrari that usually sells for $300,000 but is being discounted to $95,000?   I wouldn’t want to buy it just to sell it for double my cost because I don’t want to cheat the next guy.    I know the true value of a brand new Ferrari can’t be more than twice that of a brand new Avalon.   I know the value of a brand new Avalon can’t be twice that of $15,000 American car.   I know that the value of a brand new $15,000 American car can’t be ten times greater than a $150 ticket at the Metropolitan Opera.   I know that that ticket hasn’t five times the value of an excellent meal in an excellent restaurant.   Go all the way down.   Go down to the guy who sells nickel candy for 6 cents.  He is a vicious crook, a dedicated enemy of fair play.  I haven’t half the pity for victims of earthquakes that I have hatred for this crook.  (Don’t get me wrong – I just plunged many $thousands into Haiti relief funds, thanks to all the money I have from refusing to pay 6 cents for nickel candy.)  When I go to bed at night, the refrain “Diminishing marginal utility of money” lulls me to sleep.

I am sick of it all.   Every day I call up the rocket ship repair company and ask how it is coming along with my craft.   When will I be able to go home to Planet XPlccch3M?   It keeps stalling me and says it is has sent for parts that can only come from my planet.  That’s 2.023 light years away.  It dispatched a request in a pneumatic tube but the speed is a rotten 400,000 miles per hour.   Don’t do the math.  I’m doomed.      The fools can’t even pronounce my planet’s name which, any nincompoop can see is a simple monosyllabic word.

Value is very hard to calculate so there was nothing funny whatsoever when Jack Benny took a long time to respond to a robber’s demand, “Your money or your life”  with “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”

Here is a song from Mickey Katz’s very, very famous son.