Scene Content
A cruise ship sailing in the Caribbean.
Luca is surprised that he and Nathan have been placed at a large dinner table with a brazilian family, two ladies (mother and daughter) from New York and a gay couple from San Diego.
Mark commented, “I’m aghast that so much money is being spent to rescue big banks, while common people are losing their houses, their savings.”
“That’s the cruelest aspect of this whole melee,” Luca explained. “If the government let banks fail—as it did with Lehman—the whole economy will go down the drain. I hope at least they go after the overlords of the financial world who earned so much money while creating this mess.”
“Fat chance!” Janet’s mother exclaimed. “It didn’t happen in 1929, it won't happen now. At least in the 1930s, Roosevelt used the crisis to implement the New Deal. Nowadays, with the country so divided and Fox News spreading so much BS, I won’t be surprised if in a few months they’ll be blaming Obama for the crisis.”
“I was talking to a lady in the spa,” interjected Nathan, “who thinks Obama will, like, turn the USA into a communist country.”
“I considered voting for McCain,” Jeff confessed. “I’m a veteran, and I share a lot of McCain’s worldviews. However, when he chose that Sarah Pailin to be his vice president, I gave up on the idea. I feared that if he died, that lunatic would take over.”
Luca concludes, “To close my argument, my fear is that the crisis will now globalize. We might see not only banks, but entire countries going bankrupt.”
“Jesus! You’re really an optimist!” Mark gasped.
Little did we know of what was about to happen in 2009…