Shark Tank 

This show is a disgrace. One initially approaches it from the perspective that one might--just might--learn something about business: after all, fantastically wealthy people (who presumably earned their money through ingenuity and razor-sharp judgment) are--on live {as it were} TV, no less--making life-or-death decisions about real companies.

So much for the hype. Now comes the reality . . .

One shark is ruder than the next. Each shark can scarcely wait for the next opportunity to tell the world how astute, accomplished, and demonically brilliant he is. I wonder how they would feel if Bill Gates showed up and--with pocket change--bought and sold these clowns and sent them to the poorhouse on a remote planet. Their behavior is monstrous: they seem interested only in squeezing the gonads of everyone who comes before them, offering pennies on the dollar despite legitimate valuations.

(Since, admittedly, many of the would-be entrepreneurs' ideas are beyond poor, I wonder why the sharks would even invite them onto the show in the first place--unless to provide themselves even cheaper, easier fodder {they don't want to risk insulting someone with a brain, as that may backfire}--but I digress . . .)

Unfortunately, few and far between are the entrepreneurs who have the guts to put the sharks in their place . . . for, it is also true that the ability to suck backside can, after all, be an important ingredient in garnering success. But, IMHO, most of the minnows could--and should--do far better than to trot their wares before these abject buffoons who specialize in self-embarrassment, showcasing the very worst that entrepreneurial America has to offer.

I find myself considering the true entrepreneurs of the past--the likes of Andrew Carnegie and Theodore Roosevelt, who recognized from the tenderest of physical ages that their tremendous wealth carried with it an equally tremendous responsibility and obligation toward society . . . and I cry for these rapacious ne'er-do-wells who perform on my TV screen much as monkeys at the zoo will happily play with their own feces for the amusement of the crowds.