Lessons Learned from the Bennett Bailout

Earlier, we posted an in-depth discussion of the Marvel Universe's Bennett Bailout. To refresh your memory: former construction tycoon, current newspaper owner, and just ludicrously wealthy entrepreneur Dexter Bennett had somehow managed to persuade the United States federal government to award The DB, perhaps New York City's most prominent newspaper, a financial bailout.

Now that the bailout debacle is behind us (or so I think), it is important to look back and reflect on the lessons learned.

1) The public is fickle and easily swayed, but largely against bailouts.

Amazing Spider-Man #613 by Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta

Unlike the real world, the economy can be used to spread fear and paranoia in comic books. Not only that--it can be done by a supervillain.

Where's the actual public on this? Well in March 2009, a CBS News poll reported that 53% of the public were against giving more bailout to financial institutions, up from 44% only three months prior. I haven't seen any more recent polls about the bailouts, but it isn't a stretch to assume people have grown more disillusioned over the past year. A reaction such as the one in New York City is sudden, yet not really shocking (pun intended).

However, the overwhelmingly harsh response from NYC is interesting here. For one thing, citizens seem to be confusing Dexter Bennett for a Wall Street guy and seem to be conflating financial institutions and banks with news organizations. It's one thing to be hesitant in providing more money to institutions that individuals believe were the primary source of the recession, but it's quite another to be upset with the The DB. It actually seems like the citizens are rallying not so much against Wall Street, but against all rich people in general.

Of course, it's probably that New Yorkers are upset to see their taxpayer money wasted frivolously on organizations that they don't believe need to be bailed out. But then their problem isn't exactly with Dexter Bennett, but with the Federal Government and its policies.

2) The public is largely uninformed about, well, everything.

It's a sad day when people think that Spider-Man (who incidentally did not reveal his identity and is opposed to the Superhuman Registration Act of 2006) actually cuts a federal salary from the Avengers and pays no taxes on it. First of all, we know that Tony Stark pays a significant amount of taxes. Second, how would that even work? Would the Avengers hand him a check endorsed over to "Spider-Man," which he would then take and deposit into a Spider-Man bank account? And unless people actually think that Spider-Man is some sort of alien with no alter ego, he does pay taxes as Peter Parker.

3) Placing trust in Wall Street will only lead to destruction.

Amazing Spider-Man #614 by Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta

These are important life lessons. How many times have supervillains led the public against its superheroes using the prospect of a bleak political or economic future? I've said it before and I'll say it again. The best way to fight villainy is to educate citizens, especially in matters of the economy.

Oh yeah, and don't trust Wall Street.

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Extremely Rich Character Sighting: Dexter Bennett

Amazing Spider-Man #607 by Joe Kelly, Mike McKone & Adriana Melo

Here's a question for the readers: How rich do you suppose Dexter Bennett is? This guy claims to have been responsible for about 50% of the new construction in the 1980s. Remember that the construction industry in comic books is a highly profitable organization--more so than on real-Earth. The reason being simply that there are devastating blows to major DC and Marvel cities occurring basically every single day. On Monday, Bullseye might blow up a building, on Tuesday the Green Goblin might pumpkin bomb a bank, on Wednesday Galactus might try to take over again, and so on. It's become quotidian.

The 1980s was a particularly significant decade in overwhelming destruction. There were major events/storylines such as "Secret Wars", "Hulk in Exile," "Mutant Massacre," "Armor Wars," "The Evolutionary War," "Inferno," "Atlantic Attacks," and so forth. And those are just the major events. They don't take into account your run-of-the-mill pumpkin bombing.

So when Dexter Bennett says that he was involved in a huge chunk of construction in the 80s, we know that he must be loaded. About 1/2 the time New York City gets completely leveled by one of the aforementioned events, his company is there doing all the building repairs and restoring everything back to normal so that the villains can knock it all down again. Now of course we don't know how much of this sort of post-apocalyptic reconstruction is typically done by private companies like Bennett's. It might be a public works effort. In fact, there might be some sort of task force standing by with shovels waiting to rebuild after the next attack. Also, we don't know what Bennett exactly means by "new construction" -- it might imply that his business dealt exclusively with new endeavors, not renovation.

If he was involved, though, this could be one of the richest men in the world. Not only would have have made a ton of money from operations, but he claimed that he had only gotten into the business for "tax shelters only." The implication here is that he was already independently wealthy, but didn't own a business. Can you imagine how much money this guy must have? He may have more assets than Tony Stark. He certainly does now since he has extra cash to throw around to purchase newspapers (Dexter Bennett is now the owner of the DB) and Tony's assets have been seized by Norman Osborn.

It's a wonder that Bennett did not become a supervillain himself. After all, we know from one of our earlier posts that millionaires = crazy. Actually, Dexter Bennett is so sane that he backed out of a deal his partner made that he knew to be criminal. And boy what a deal it was. More on this later...

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