#19: Qui Bono And Two Other Money Questions

When political questions came up in Rome, shrewd Cicero asked Qui Bono, which translates as “who benefits?” Even today, anyone familiar with movies and Tv realizes that the first thing a prosecutor or detective will ask is: Who profits from the crime? We can easily see that when we are trying to unravel mysterious events, an excellent starting point is the identification of motive: look for the person with something to gain.

If we are cynical (which may be nothing more than realistic), we can even apply the question usefully when we are asked to commit ourselves to high ideals and to sacrifice our interests to greater goods. “Pay more taxes to help the poor”: Who profits? “Stop using gasoline to save the planet”: Who profits? “Absorb the illegal immigrants”: Who profits? "Submit to government run health care": Who profits? The road of good intentions is lined on either side with profiteering parasites. One excellent example of this is Michael Moore, who is just capitalizing on bashing capitalizing in his latest movie.

While “who stands to benefit?” is an excellent analytical aid, there are at least two other important and related questions.

“Who is paying the freight?” makes all the difference, but we frequently don’t know and even don’t remember to ask.

We do ask who is paying when we think of Hezbollah and the costs of its armament. But we almost missed the question entirely with respect to Bill Clinton’s campaign and Chinese contributions. And who is now seriously asking where the money for Acorn comes from? Sure, we all suspect there are fellows like the affable and charming George Soros making their contributions, but there are very likely charitable foundations as well, not to mention the federal government itself. Is this something we would want? The federal government using our money to fund the activities of professional social agitators dedicated to the overthrow of the nation as it presently exists? Who is paying? Who is paying? Who? Could some of the money be coming from outside? From Saudi Arabia? From Iran? From Venezuela? It would be helpful to know.

Who is paying? Who is paying for Greenpeace and its fancy speedboats? Who is paying for the anti-globalization protestors wherever the IMF or the World Bank meet? Who pays for their travel, for their food, for their lodging?

It would be good to know who is paying.

It would be disturbing if hostile forces were paying the bills, but maybe even more if it turned out to be you and me.

But a third question should be asked by any large officially sanctioned welfare group such as the population that has invented itself as “The Palestinians.” If there were any intelligence to be found there, a number of related questions would also surface. Given annual international welfare to the tune of millions and millions of dollars, a large pot coming from the EU, another from the US, and a third (we are told) from the wealthy Arab states: Where are the roads? Where are the hospitals? Where are the Universities? Where are the businesses? Where is the money?

For a while it seemed that some people at least were looking for it in Arafat’s Swiss accounts, but that investigation petered out, and not even the starving “Palestinians” are asking this penetrating question: What happened to the money?

Why is it that they never seem to ask: Given all that money, why are we living like this? Asking this question might be the beginning of a new roadmap towards peace.

But even if the Arabs don't want to ask, Where is the money? Shouldn't we be asking that question of what our government doles out in the form of international aid? Where is the money going that we give in the billions whenever there is a disaster? Where is the money going that we give to that joke we house and clothe in Manhattan, the UN? Where is the money we send and have been sending to "developing nations"? And what is it that developing nations "develop"? We know, don't we? They develop their anonymous accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, and it is with our money that they develop them.

So, in modern terms, the questions are these:

1) Who stands to profit?

2) Who is paying for what is happening? And

3) What happened to the money?