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Another great trip down memory lane and a peek at how the world really works, then and now, when those people are in charge.

I had seen it all before. Here’s my favorite explanation from Miami Vice, season 2 episode 1: Prodigal Son when Crockett and Tubbs confront J. J. Johnston, the evil banker behind the curtain.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who remembered that guy and this scene, as I got the dialogue from here:

"Hi there, we're the cops you've been trying to kill," Crockett says forcefully.
Johnston, his back to them in a gesture of disrespect, proceeds to display his inside knowledge of the cops' anemic bank accounts and debt troubles.
Crockett remains unimpressed: "You goin' somewhere with this, or are you just runnin' laps?"
The patrician Johnston sits down, pours a glass of water, and contemplates it.
The Value of Money
“Money is a commodity, like oil or water," Johnston soliloquizes, in a superior manner. "And that American dollar, is the best brand there is in the world.
Now those of us who have it, can make more of it, by loaning it to those that don't.
Not so long ago, our bank loaned a lot of money to our friends in Latin America. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.
Now they aren't going to repay that by selling straw bags and clay pots. If these Latin borrowers default, we would be decimated.
And we are America. We are the entire free world. When we sneeze, everybody catches cold.
That is why, it's very, very important, that we nurture and protect our Latin brothers' major cash crops."
"Especially those that he measures in kilos," Tubbs offers slyly.
"Are you sure you wouldn't like a drink?" Johnston asks coldly.
What I want is answers," Crockett responds, with intensity.
"I want to know why a Wall Street address is running interference for a couple of bloodthirsty Colombian peasants.
I want to know why murder and mayhem are suddenly footnotes on a balance sheet."
"Look," Johnston counters condescendingly, like a parent talking to a child. "All you need to know is that you're just along for the ride. It's a big boat--why rock it?"
"I don't give a damn if it's the U.S.S. Enterprise, pal, or who's on it or why," Crockett retorts. "Our job is to rock it. And if it sinks--so what?"
"I doubt that's going to happen," Johnston counters, unbowed.
"No?" asks Tubbs a bit playfully. "How's it go now?
Discreet phone call to some Ivy League buddy?
A little button-down talking and suddenly two South Dade cops become tin ducks in a shooting gallery, without backup for a major bust."
"That door," Johnston utters, dismissing them, "leads to the outer hallway."
Tubbs goes to the door. Crockett follows.
He gets the last word.
"I can't touch you; I know that," Crockett tells Johnston. "Too many roadblocks and politics, favors.
But you're dirty, Ace. And I'm patient."

See what I mean?

When Clinton was elected, I already had a working understanding of the value of money and clay pots.

We’ve been progressed a long, long way from then until now.

And we would have been made to stay on this road to its utterly dead end were it not for President Donald J. Trump and all he’s brought with him.