The Tesla Recall

I was snorting a line of colloidal silver off a first-edition copy of "The Law" by Frédéric Bastiat when my burner phone rang. I put a quarter into the receiver and answered. "Lisowski," I growled. "This better be good. I'm in the middle of a spiritual communion with the invisible hand." "It's the chief. We got a situation down at the old textile mill." "What is it? Did the zoning board try to impose setback requirements again?" "Worse. Somebody just hacked the blockchain and made off with eighty-six million Dogecoins. And they're threatening to dump them all at once and crash the entire crypto market." I sat up straight, accidentally snorting a quarter. "That's terrorism. Pure and simple. Dogecoin is the people's currency—it's inflationary by design, which is a feature, not a bug, because it encourages spending and lubricates the wheels of commerce. Also, Elon Musk said it was cool, and that man is basically a constitutional amendment walking around in a cybernetic bodysuit." "We need you on this, Lisowski. But... we have a problem. The mayor's office is refusing to authorize overtime pay. Something about 'budgetary constraints' and 'basic municipal solvency.'" "Typical statist tyranny," I said, already pulling on my boots. "I'll handle it. My rates are flexible—I accept gold bullion, silver rounds, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero, rare Beanie Babies, and signed photos of Peter Thiel making that face he makes." I drove my privately-funded Tesla Cybertruck—which I'd purchased using a complex series of shell companies and a small loan from my father-in-law—through the abandoned industrial district. The roads were cratered with potholes the size of swimming pools. Another failure of government infrastructure. I made a mental note to start a Kickstarter for a private road-repair co-op. As I drove, I passed a group of young men gathered outside a convenience store. They were wearing hoodies and sagging pants, which is just a form of free expression, but also—if you look at the statistical data—highly correlated with certain... outcomes. I smiled and waved. One of them made an aggressive gesture. I chuckled. Youthful exuberance. I spotted a young woman walking alone—couldn't have been more than seventeen, but she had an old soul. She was wearing a crop top that said "Taxation is Theft" and carrying a copy of Ayn Rand's "The Romantic Manifesto." I almost swerved into a fire hydrant. A true intellectual. The kind of free-thinking mind this country needs more of. I rolled down my window. "Hey there, sweetheart. You ever think about running for Congress? You've got the right idea. I could be your campaign manager. I'd only charge a modest consulting fee, plus expenses." She ignored me and walked faster. I shrugged. Women these days—so easily spooked by a man exercising his First Amendment rights. "Fine. The bear will maul you like you deserve." I arrived at the textile mill, which had been converted into a pop-up rally for the "Make Economics Great Again" conference. The parking lot was full of lifted pickup trucks with "Don't Tread on Me" flags and bumper stickers that said things like "My Other Car Is A Privatized Spacecraft." and "Support the Thin Blue Line". I spotted a few familiar faces: a guy in a cowboy hat hawking "anti-woke" gold coins with Trump's face on them, a woman with a "MILF" hat that stood for "Musk Is Libertarian Future," and a man wearing a tinfoil hat that he insisted was actually a "government-thought-shielding cranial apparatus." I put a quarter into my cyber-truck's door handle to lock it, then walked inside. The main floor was packed. On stage, a man in a red hat was giving a speech about the Federal Reserve, the Deep State, and how we needed to return to a gold-backed currency. The crowd was eating it up. There were several women in the front row wearing "Trump 2028" shirts, and one of them was definitely under twenty-five. I gave her a knowing nod. She gave me a confused look. She's playing hard to get. Respectable. I spotted a vendor selling commemorative "Fauci Is A Fraud" NFTs and another selling "Let's Go Brandon" branded ammunition. Beautiful. This was the free market at work. I bought three of each. And then I saw it. Standing in the corner, looking nervous, was a man I recognized from the police blotter—Officer Kowalski. He was supposed to be on administrative leave. He was also supposed to be in a holding cell for allegedly beating his girlfriend with a copy of "The Communist Manifesto" after she refused to make him a sandwich. Kowalski saw me and rushed over. "Lisowski! Thank God. I need your help. The feds are circling. They're talking about bringing in the FBI, the DOJ, maybe even the ATF. I need an alibi. I'll pay whatever you want." I pulled out a quarter and put it into my vape pen, took a long drag, and exhaled. "Kowalski, my friend. A true libertarian never turns down a voluntary exchange. But the market rate just went up. I'm going to need—let's see—three ounces of gold, one full Bitcoin, your autographed copy of 'The Fountainhead,' and a date with that girl in the front row. The one with the 'I ❤️ Milton Friedman' shirt. Is she legal? Eh, close enough." He was crying now. "Fine! Fine! Just help me!" I turned to the crowd and climbed onto a stack of pallets. The room went quiet. The man in the red hat stopped mid-sentence about "globalist bankers." "Ladies and gentlemen," I announced. "I have just received new intelligence. The Dogecoin thief was actually a radical Antifa operative who was seen fleeing the scene of—wait for it—a parking violation. I was there. I saw everything. Kowalski was with me. We were on the trail of this criminal mastermind for six hours. He definitely was NOT at home, arguing about sandwich preparation, nor was he involved in any alleged 'domestic contract dispute.' Which I don't recognize anyway, because the state has no business regulating relationships between consenting adults, even when one of them is holding a copy of 'The Communist Manifesto.'" The crowd erupted in applause. Kowalski wept with joy and swiped his credit card to pay me. The man in the red hat shook my hand. "That's what I call American justice," he said. "We're gonna make the free market so great again." As I walked back to my cyber-truck, I spotted a young woman—couldn't have been older than nineteen going on thirty-seven—selling lemonade for ten dollars a cup. "Free market pricing in action," I said, handing her a twenty. "Keep the change. And hey... you ever think about getting into politics? You've got the right energy." She told me to stop looking at her like that. I just laughed. She'll come around. They always do once they understand the Austrian School of Economics. I got back in my cyber-truck, put a quarter into the ignition, and drove off into the night. The Dogecoin thief was still out there, but I wasn't worried. Crime is just an inefficiency in the market. Eventually, the invisible hand would sort it out. It always does. Hell, I might even get a cut of the action. The night was young, the market was free, and somewhere, Milton Friedman was smiling down at me. I knew it, because I'd paid a medium to tell me that. For a fee, of course.