The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Greed has never really gotten the credit it’s due. Always tossed in as one of the 7 deadly sins, it has been so unfairly demonized throughout history that we just take it for granted that it must be bad, very bad, even immoral. Since the founding of the nation, laws have been written to keep our leaders from falling into the temptation to use their offices for personal gain. We just took it for granted that profiting from their positions would lead to bribes and graft and worse. Deals would be made, insider trading would be rampant, politics would become monetized.

America voted Trump into office, not once but twice, based on the belief that his business acumen would bring prosperity to the country. The man knows how to make a buck. He was, after all, a reality TV billionaire, a guy who could hire and fire with the best of them, a hard-nosed, take no prisoners CEO who paid little in taxes, used bankruptcy laws to his advantage and operated in possibly shady ways but nevertheless got things done. Just what half this country wanted and what half this country got.

This week the President took time out from negotiating tariffs with the rest of the world and weighing whether to drop bunker buster bombs (BBB’s too as well as the Big Beautiful Bill), to announce the Trump Cellphone, made in America and yours for only $499. But wait! If you act now, a second phone is yours as well, pay only shipping and handling (from India or Indonesia, sound similar, doesn’t much matter which). Hurry because when those tariffs go into effect, that offer will expire. And yes, of course these phones are made in America at this ridiculously low price. By American workers, not illegal immigrants who are gang members with tattoos. In factories here on American soil. For a price that boggles the imagination.

Greed, my fellow citizens, is finally back in vogue. The gold phone — perfect for the Gilded Age. His operators are standing by.