When I was a kid, there were these wonderful cartoons about a wolf and a sheepdog. At the beginning of every day, they would walk up to a tree with a clock on it, mutter some greetings to each other, and get their time cards punched. Then they would spend the entire day antagonizing each other. It was a variation on the whole Coyote and Road Runner formula, because the wolf never won. The wolf would try to steal away a sheep and the sheepdog would always catch him, and it just went on like that, all day long. Then at the end, they would go back to that tree, mumble some farewells to each other, and call it a day. That cartoon always stuck in my memory as a commentary on how too much of life actually works. So many of us are gainfully employed purely to fuck around with other people and their business. It's an empty pointless endless game, and yet an economy of some sort can be generated from it. Orwell addressed this on a far grander scale, explaining why Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia needed to be locked in perpetual war.
Over the years, I have long wondered: who were their employers? They had to be getting paid by someone, as clocking in and out is scarcely a ritual one engages in purely for the hell of it. It makes sense to pay the sheepdog, as the sheep are valuable and he's clearly doing his job. But what does anyone gain from paying the wolf? Would the wolf share his spoils? Is there some incentive to try to sabotage the wool or mutton industries? And even if there is a rationale, the wolf should have been fired long ago, because he is simply terrible at his job.
But then, just last night, I finally figured out who the wolf's employer is. It's Sheldon Adelson.