Buy Off
The pattern of corruption is simple. The corrupt find individuals who can and will support their agendas, and lure them into the corruption with offers of money and power.
Track 9 on:
Lyrics
What if you were an expert
In business, pushing funds around
Look at the things you can do
Look at the money you’ve found
Someone slips you an offer
Without making a sound
What actions do you choose
What do you decide to do now
They say they’ll put you up at the top
Of your business profession
For some big corporation’s
political obsession
A potential chance to have it made
Is in your possession
At the cost of oppression
Or another great depression
I was volunteering to act as the president of the companies
And I would go in and—my job was to liquidate them
I’d get rid of the expendable containers, that’s the people
And we’d raid all the assets and we’d split ’em
When we got through doing all that
Anyway, as I was running around the country
I got introduced to a lot of, you know, the powerful people
And one weekend I was invited up to Aspen
I come into the meet—this room and I said
“What am I here for?” and they said
“We want you to be the Finance Chairman for the next President of the United States”
What if you’re not selfless
And your greed is bigger than you
You close your eye, you hold your breath
And you do what they want you to do
What if your influence to some degree
Determines what we go through
You do it again, and again, and again, and again
To try to feel right about what you do
And it gets worse
It gets worse
It gets worse
And it gets worse
It gets worse
It gets worse
And it gets worse
It gets worse
It gets worse
And it gets worse
It gets worse
And it gets worse
It gets worse
It gets worse
And it gets worse
It gets worse
It gets worse
And it gets worse
It gets worse
It gets worse
And it gets worse
It gets worse
What if your influence to some degree
Determines what we go through
You do it again, and again, and again, and again
To try to feel right about what you do
Anyway, I said, “Well, I have the next question, why me?”
And they said “Well, number one, you’re pretty good with money”
“And we owe you a favor” and I said
“Well, the next question I have is who’s going to be the next President?”
And he said “Jimmy Carter”
And I said, “Jimmy who?”
And he said “Well he’s the Democratic Governor of Georgia”
And I said “But I’ve been voting Republican”
And this tall guy, Paul Volcker, walks over and says
“Son, don’t worry about it, we control them both”
And I was running around with the guys, I—
But I didn’t have the—
Each one of them—
They compartmentalize all the information that you get
Okay
You know you can go—
When you’re with the people that are making the plays
They have certain ego things that they want to satisfy
I mean—Kissinger said “The absolute aphrodisiac is power”
So we put anybody they want to in power
And then just feed ’em whatever they want to do
I mean—I joked about it
I could wear my jeans and go down and borrow
You know, borrow a million bucks on my signature
No questions asked