When the Founders got together to establish this great Republic of ours, they had certain clear goals in mind. Here they are:

• form a more perfect Union,
• establish Justice,
• insure domestic Tranquility,
• provide for the common defense,
• promote the general Welfare,
• and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

Throughout our history, this vision of what government should do has changed, grown and shrunk depending on the level of heart, spleen or brains any given generation of the ruling class has under their wigs, vests or pinstripes.

For instance, back in the 19th Century, “promoting the general welfare” might very well have meant keeping the poor locked up in houses especially designed to keep them off the streets, and to start children working at jobs that stunted their growth by the age of eight.

We don’t do that any more, pretty much. Since the 1930s, it’s been pretty much the common assumption among decent Americans that it’s better to provide a safety net for people, that no matter what philosophical universe you inhabit it’s not good for children to go to bed hungry or to have the poor parts of town burn down every ten years or so.

Same for old people. They tend to need more medical care than others, so Government provided a program to make sure that when they get sick they don’t have to wander around with a tin cup and cane pretending to be blind like they used to do.

Education, too. At some point a while back, it became clear that not everybody could afford to send their kids to private school, so somebody got the idea of creating schools that anybody could go to for free. We all pay for them, of course, some of us more willingly than others, in the form of taxes.

And forget about the whole “provide for the common defense” thing. The Government could probably provide every single one of us with a nice Z3 Roadster if we didn’t have to do that.

As society grows and changes, then, our idea of the proper role of Government — what it needs to do to protect the needy, the weak, the powerless, the downtrodden, the huddled masses and their friends — mutates and shifts along with it.

Today we can add another group to the list of those who require intercession by We the People: Big Banks that have mismanaged the deposits entrusted to them by their customers. Two hundred and fifty billion dollars to once-proud burghers like Citigroup (C), Goldman Sachs (GS), Bank of America (BAC) and JP Morgan Chase (JPM). It seems like a small price to pay to make sure that none of these banks go hungry, or are forced to spend a night on the streets begging for the price of a martini — which can go as high as $20 in many major cities.

Many of us complain about Government and how it’s gotten too big, or intrudes too much on the free markets that we love so much. Now many of those who have complained the loudest are breathing a sigh of relief that Uncle Sam has once again opened his heart and his pockets to them in their time of need.

They’re first right now in the big breadline.  Let’s hope they leave a few crumbs for the rest of those who need a bit of a hand now and then.

I’m sure your eyes goggled when you saw it too. JP Morgan (JPM) paid a couple or three hundred million for a company worth incalculably more. It’s stunning. And while one may wonder about the executive competence of those who engineering this catastrophe, those who simply showed up every day to do what was expected of them are now faced with an uncertain fate, one that has afflicted working people since the first Etruscans noticed a large group of Romans heading over the hill, and probably before.

Guys, you were once a nation. Now you are a duchy under a much larger corporate flag. Soon there will be fewer of you, and those of you who survive to wear the new colors will have obeyed certain rules, rules that will not guarantee your success but will enhance your somewhat slender chances. Here are a few suggestions from one who has been through it a few thousand times:

Know the lay of the land. It is possible that the world has moved on so completely that acquisitors no longer even feign collegiality. When I was a kid, when a company took you over they paid a lot of lip service to how great things were going to be for everybody. I know, because I was in the lip service department. “We have two great cultures here and together one plus one will equal four!” That kind of thing. These protestations were often accompanied by word the expenses would be “rationalized,” but such warnings also went hand-in-hand with assurances that resulting merged departments would be “stocked with the best both companies have to offer.” This is hogwash. When Rome wins, Romans take over. So get ready to become one or die as a lowly Briton.

Total merger may not be inevitable, however. Your colony may be permitted to exist under its own name, with its own government loyal to the Czar across the street. This will go better for you, since you can easily transform yourself into part of the transitional team that’s helping to deliver everybody to their individual fate. Either way, as of this morning you will need to eradicate your persona as a Bear guy and begin the transformation into a true Morganian.

Believe nothing you read. Accept no assurances. You are in a fight for your life and must now play by your own rules. Wolves — solitary, smart and predatory — do better than dogs.

How do they dress? What time do they come in to the office? Where do they eat for lunch? Think about these things. If you’re not executed in the first mass action, you may need these kinds of insights.

Who do you know that’s doing well in Rome? You’ve been in the game for a while. There must be somebody. Reach out and touch them. Make yourself known. Let it be perceived that if the new guys need a hand, you’ve got two, and are not encumbered by sentiment, prior loyalty or grief. You are ready to move on and are looking for ways to do it that are congenial to the new world order.

If you have a major project that even a blind man can see will be worthwhile, redouble your efforts. I am certain that, even as it bubbles under the water, the continent of Bear Stearns had things going on that could still make money for somebody. If your little island of productivity is bobbing on top of the water when the victors come around looking for survivors, so much the better for you.

Look for a new boss. Your new boss may be the same as your old boss, by the way. In my experience, your superior officers will be necessary for a while, so don’t assume that every one of them is toasted. But keep your eyes open and your heart empty.

Finally: Wait. Be very patient. And have courage. It is difficult to merge two gigantic entities. Your new masters will need your firm to perform, and will be looking for guys who can keep things going while they decide who shall live and who shall enter the land of decruitment.

Be cool. Calm. Acutely aware of opportunities and pitfalls. When they do move on you all, they will probably begin by offering packages of some kind to those of a certain level whose jobs once meant something to somebody. Those packages can often be negotiated by those willing to be a pain in the infrastructure. Do not leap before you look.

And each morning as you wake up, and remember that your country is no more, also keep in mind that many city states have fallen before yours, that survivors of defunct cultures now populate a host of brave new worlds.

Just ask the guys who used to work for Netscape. Many of them are doing quite well, I hear.

A little while back, I hit a nerve with some of you who, like me, had been chased to the ends of their patience by Chase Bank. Many of you commented at that time with your own stories of woe and your ideas on how to establish a future free from mindless, incessant solicitation.

Well, I have a piece of news for all of you, and for anybody similarly plagued by a swarm of snail mail from JP Morgan Chase offering you 0% financing and free credit cards until the day you croak and all that nonsense, on and on and on. Last night I dropped by my old apartment — the one that was on the Chase radar screen — and collected a stack of mail that the U.S. Postal Service keeps delivering to that mailbox in spite of my entreaties not to do so. But I digress.

In the mailbox was the following letter from the people at Chase:

Dear Mr. Bing,

As your credit card company, we value your business and want you to be completely satisfied with your credit card account. We are responding to your recent request to remove your name from certain types of solicitations and/or information sharing.

We are pleased to confirm that we have taken actions to remove your name from the solicitation and/or information-sharing type you requested. Please understand, however, that if offers were prepared for you before we fulfilled your request, you may still receive those offers until our actions take effect. After that time, however, you should receive offers related to those types of solicitations and/or information sharing. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

If you requested that we exclude you from mailings, your request will be honored until it automatically expires five years from the date of your request. If you move or otherwise change your mailing address, you will need to update your request to include your new address information.

If you requested that we exclude you from telephone solicitations, your request will be honored for the telephone number you provided. If that number changes, you will need to update your request to include your new telephone number.

If, in the future, you would like to change your choice, please call us for reinstatement details. If you have any questions, please call us at the toll-free number noted above. For your convenience, we are here 24 hours a day to assist you.

Sincerely,

Cardmember Services

I like that after five years they will assume that my distaste for their onslaught will abate, presumably with greater maturity, and they may begin again. That’s a nice touch.

Oh, by the way: Along with this letter in my mailbox were six catalogs from Frontgate, a confusing array of ads, entreaties and threatening notices from Chrysler about a leased car I gave back a few months ago, and six letters offering me a superb deal on a new credit card from Chase. Uh-huh.

I just had what I believe to be a very satisfactory discussion with a nice woman who has not yet gone postal at the Postal Service. I truly believe that in the near future the Government will begin forwarding this valuable mail to me at my new address.

I think I know what I will find therein when it finally does come through, and you know what? I can hardly wait.

For a few years now, I have rented a small shack down by a harbor not far from New York City. I keep stuff there. It’s a relic of a time past when I was sort of crashing on my own. At the end of the driveway there’s one of those collections of mailboxes you see by the marinas of the world, a bunch of tin containers with the little metal flags the mailman puts up when he’s left something inside. 

For a long time now, though, my life has taken me in other directions, and I don’t spend a lot of time in my little one-room studio/shack by the water. Two years ago, I informed all of the vendors and merchants and friends and others who might send me snail mail that I had a new, primary address.

There was no way I could get to everybody though. So when I do get out there every few weeks, or months, actually, I find my mailbox stuffed with junk. There’s the occasional item of actual interest, but 99% of the contents are from entities that are soliciting me in one form or another. Catalogs. Missives from Chrysler, from whom I purchased a vehicle three years ago and who wants me to be its love slave. Continual pleadings from organizations that want to save one thing or another. And solicitations from Chase. And solicitations from Chase. And solicitations from Chase. And…

JP Morgan Chase (JPM) is a banking institution, as you know. I used to have an account there, but for one reason or another I moved on to another institution. It’s no better or worse. It’s just nearer to my office by about eight yards. So I go there.

Selling people credit cards must be one of Chase’s high-margin businesses, because once they get your address they never let go. At the beginning, perhaps 1500 mailings ago, I found it kind of amusing. I’d go to the mailbox and there would be my catalog from Frontgate, and my multiple entreaties from the World Wildlife Federation, and about eight envelopes from Chase. Zero percent financing! Important financial information enclosed! Some had return addresses announcing who the junk mail had come from. Others were more clever and showed no leg on the outside. I would rip them up and toss them. I don’t need any more credit cards. Isn’t it the rampant, indiscriminate granting of credit that’s gotten the financial institutions of the world into so much trouble, anyhow? After all this time, wasn’t it clear that I had no interest in their stupid credit cards?

And still they came, like water bugs through a rotten floorboard, again and again, promising all the good things life has to offer with a big 0% on just about every one. And I would rip them up. And still they came.

Which of us understands the inner workings of our own soul? I know that I, like Hamlet, have always but incompletely known myself. So I’m at a loss to explain to you why the constant influx of mailings from Chase works on me the way it does. The truth is, at this point in time, what feels like thousands and thousands of wasted intrusions later, they really and truly enrage me. I have gone from bemusement to annoyance and then way, way past that. I see red. I fling them across the room. I curse the organization that cannot comprehend that five years of silence means that if I am interested in getting a credit card from Chase, or opening and account at Chase, or taking out a loan from Chase, that I will friggin’ GO TO A CHASE BANK!

I guess the final straw for me was this past week. I am moving out of that little shack because I want my stuff closer by than it is now, and I have very little use for a getaway to which I cannot get away. I am also moving to get away from Chase. So far they haven’t found my new address. I am hoping that continues.

Perhaps the last mailing I will receive, if God is in heaven and smiling upon me, is the one I just dealt with. It was one of those bogus checks that shady merchants send to entice you into a paying relationship with them. It was made out to me at my old address, dated November 20, 2007, in the amount of $9.25. That’s nine dollars and twenty-five cents. After all the years we’ve spent together? That’s all?

At any rate, I’m not too proud to cash a check for $9.25, particularly one I receive from an old business acquaintance for doing nothing. Curious, I turned the check over and read the message on the back. It said:

“By cashing this check, I agree to a Trial Offer in Hot-Line and understand that the $59.99 semi-annual fee will automatically be charged to my Chase credit card account unless I cancel my membership by calling 1-877-658-8950 before the end of the Trial Offer period. I understand that I will also be charged every six months at the then-current fee and must cancel to avoid future fees and receive any applicable refund.”

A negative option. Have you ever tried to cancel anything with a large institution? It’s like trying to quit the CIA. That’s beside the point. A check for $9.25 to entice you to enlist in a service that costs $120 a year. I don’t know about you, but I don’t pay yearly fees for my credit cards. So the generous offer of nine bucks now sits torn to shreds in my wastepaper basket. It felt good to tear it up. The pleasure was momentary, though. Because down in the depths of my heart, wherever that may be, I know one thing for certain. No matter where I live… no matter what I do…

They’ll be back.