Merry Capitalist!

December 16, 2016

Socialist Worker's Danny Katch, author of Socialism...Seriously: A Brief Guide to Human Liberation, gives you a peek at a very different holiday shopping guide.

WELCOME TO Santa's Little Concierge, the holiday gift column for the Point Zero Zero Zero One Percent.

Whether your loved ones have been Illuminati or Illuminice, they deserve a present worthy of their class. But what do you get for the man who has everything, literally, and who is statistically likely to be an ungrateful sociopath? That's where we come in!

There's no better cure for the mediocre materialism that's so rampant this time of year than elite materialism. Let's put the Cristal back into the Christmas, the Chanel back into Chanukah, the Kwanz...uh, the Quons...oh well nobody reading this celebrates that one anyway. On to your e-mails!


My wife and I have a tradition that each Christmas must have the most expensive presents yet. Last year, she got me a suit woven from the fur of highly endangered ring-tailed lemurs, and I bought her a diamond necklace so large it gave her scoliosis (a major status symbol at our club!). How can I top that this year?
-- Up the Creek on the Upper East Side

This Week in Capitalism | By Danny Katch

Well, Up the Creek, it looks like Santa created the Nieman Marcus Fantasy Gifts just for you! For $1.5 million, you can buy the Cobalt Valkyrie-X, an impractically tiny private plane modeled like a fighter jet, but painted in rose gold, giving it a combination of shape and color normally only found in discount vibrators.

My husband is a proud progressive who thinks the incoming president is another Hitler. He's always proclaimed that if he were in Germany in the 1930s, he would have resisted, even at the cost of his life. Right now isn't a good time, though, so it looks like he's going to have to do business and even become good friends with the POTUS. This may seem like a silly question, but is there a way I can buy him dignity, even as he abandons all of his principles?
-- Hopeful Cake Eater and Haver

You sure can, Hopeful, and the answer lies in two words: Prosthetic limb. When your husband has to pay a call to Trump Tower, he can shake hands and laugh at rape jokes for hours, all the while keeping his real fingers crossed behind his back. That and a few online donations ought to be enough to preserve his liberal credibility during these trying times.

I'm an entrepreneurial philanthropist. Rather than simply giving money to poor people who won't know how to use it, I invest it in charter schools, empowerment-through-improv classes for Somali refugees, and other statistically proven solutions. How can I apply this philosophy to the holiday bonuses I give to my doormen, dog walkers and office staff?
-- Looking to Disrupt Xmas

I'm surprised at you, LDX. How has a proud philanthropreneur like yourself not heard about the Bloomberg voucher?

It's a $100 gift card whose funds are incrementally released each time the recipient demonstrates behavioral improvement: $25 for losing five pounds, $25 for demonstrating a full month of mindfulness on the job, and the final $50 for showing some grit and finally getting over that one time you were a little drunk and called them a racial slur that's not even meaningful in an era when nobody even picks cotton anymore.

My husband Jim and I are very poor but we love each other dearly, and I thought I'd share this heartwarming story with your readers. I recently sold my hair so that I could afford to buy my husband a new watch chain. But when I gave it to him, it turned out that he had sold his watch in order to get me a set of hair combs! Despite this ironic twist, it might have been our best Christmas ever.
-- Della Young

Della, that story was pathetic and creepy. But let me know if you ever buy your husband gloves, only to find out that he chopped off a hand. I know a guy who might be looking for one.

I'm a very wealthy, handsome and classy man who just got the job I've always deserved, but never expected. Without giving too much away, let's just say I will soon be the president of a very major country with some of the world's greatest golf courses and nuclear arsenals. What should I get for myself to celebrate?
-- Ronald Ray Rrump

Congratulations Ronald! It sounds like you deserve a decadent treat that befits your status. Try this rose gold vibrator. It's like riding a luxury plane!


THAT'S IT for this year. Let me end with a word of advice. The holidays are not all about presents. It's also a chance to spend quality time with those you love--if you take advantage of the right moments.

Take the hours you spend in the bunker waiting for the Moon colony rocket. Your kids can't spend the time on their phones because the convict laborers haven't finished the wifi installation yet. A perfect time to teach them how to play Uno or charades!

These family moments are precious, not just because they're fun, but also because the secret scientists say we're going to need to rediscover how to build loving bonds if we want the Moon society to go better than this one did. Happy holidays everyone!

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