Salvator Rosa:
The Fall of the Giants
(1663)

"His adolescent attitude could ruin more than himself this time."

Something about Prosperity despises Profligacy. Prosperity seems curiously thrifty, even though it contains plenty. Of course, plenty remains a relative term. Some seem to thrive on a penny while others require vast sums to ever feel adequately supported. The apparent paradox that a thrifty Prosperity carries says much. Some self-discipline seems a necessary element if any Prosperity is to be achieved, let alone maintained. Those who would mortgage the farm on a whim either never gain Prosperity, or “mysteriously” lose it when they least expect it. A similar paradox accompanies every freedom, for none can be practiced as if absolute without somehow ruining its spirit. Each freedom seems to require a thrifty attitude in practice lest a resulting latitude overwhelm through unregulated practice. Brandy was meant for sipping, not chugging.

It seems common that the road to Profligacy usually appears as an opportunity. Losing get-rich-quick schemes often tickle some otherwise nascent fancy. I remember how one late summer afternoon, a pickup with a camper stopped by our driveway, supposedly to ask for directions. I didn’t know how to get where the driver said he was going either, but we got to talking, and he mentioned that he had one delivery left before he would be finished for the day. He described the steaks he dealt in, premium at a cut-rate price. Frozen, of course. The Muse, always suspicious of beef, inspected the stuff and declared it probably edible if not necessarily choice. A bargain! We settled on a too good to be believed price, and I shuttled packages into the basement freezer while The Muse paid the driver. Of course, the meat was inedible. It was hardly suitable for making stock. We learned a small lesson again, that there’s rarely any shortcut to Profligacy, and even if there were, it’s only very rarely worth taking that route.

Too much of even a good thing tends to turn out to be too much. Moderation might be the chief consideration when Prosperity is the question. Modesty. Prosperity need not be showy. Showy seems beside most any point. Those who insist upon only the best rarely seem all that regal to anyone else. (Notice how I’m not mentioning our incumbent, who, if anything, just seems to try way too hard to appear respectable to ever appear very respectable.) As a direct result, he seems like a scoundrel who can’t quite tell what’s correct. He gilds crap that just looks cheaper when gilded. He builds bigger what only ever seems properly scaled in miniature. He mistakes excess for success, so his taste reliably sucks. Worse, he seems to believe that Prosperity demands no less, when it must with certainty always aim for far less than his tasteless demonstrations seem to insist. He lives as an annoying, continual reminder that the rich are definitely not any smarter than the least of the rest of us. They seem tenaciously stupid in comparison to pretty much everybody else.

I had not intended to appear to be such a moralist when I began this exploration into Prosperity, but the subject seems to undeniably demand some moral center, some ‘Thou Shalt’ or ‘you’d better.’ This threatens my ethical responsibility to avoid dispensing advice, especially that advice which I might consider essential for another to follow. This sort of intrusion rarely bodes well for either advice giver or advice receiver. It might be that Profligacy must necessarily be one of those things that everybody just needs to learn about through hard-won personal experience. It sort of seems counterintuitive that nobody ever gets rich enough to avoid what I might label the Profligacy Paradox: It’s always possible to spend too much, regardless of the depth of personal wealth, and that excess inevitably spells some sort of inconveniencing peril. Profligacy might not necessarily produce a pauper, but it does seem to chastise without regard to the depth of the profligate’s wealth. Profligacy naturally exceeds some necessary limit.

Most of us seem in no danger from encroaching into Profligacy, though any one of us might be in peril at some future point. I suspect it arrives like that proverbial thief in the night, surprising its victims every bit as much as it arrives as no surprise to most of the surrounding witnesses. I suspect that some pride might get involved, as well as some measure of hubris. The avowedly invulnerable seem more likely to tumble. It might require no more than a moment of inattention. One might never recover after tumbling. It’s concerning how our incumbent has been gilding everything, for such finishes wander over that unseen border into Profligacy. I suspect that one cannot maintain a decent democracy once Profligacy becomes a part of any standard protocol. This might partly explain why potentates make such lousy Presidents. They lose all sense of proportion and routinely practice excess, morally bankrupt even before their bank account manages to catch up and seemingly self-destruct. The canny democrat, along with the wary republican understand the danger that such behavior puts their whole society. Thankfully, our Founders understood the Profligacy Paradox and designed checks and balances to better ensure some discipline in administration. Unfortunately, our Profligate President doesn’t seem to respect these necessarily essential boundaries. His adolescent attitude could ruin more than himself this time.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Prosperity, #PureSchmaltz