Until recently I would’ve simply fired all criminal CEOs and unholy underlings who preside over multi-billion-dollar annual losses yet reward themselves millions in bonuses, which, in a sane world, would be extra money paid for jobs especially well done. These brigands have so severely damaged us that a fortnight ago more than ninety percent of the world’s heads of state ordered me to rebuild the international economy, and I responded with precision and resolve, ordering my SWAT teams and elite military squads to capture, gag, and incarcerate the most egregious of the trillion-dollar thieves and hold them incommunicado in a variety of unpleasant places along with other terroristic agents.

And who will replace these self-infatuated financial gluttons? They’ll have to be people who can both inspire the masses and generate huge profits, a sublime combination that, I conclude, belongs solely to those electrifying rockers The Rolling Stones. This epiphany arrives as I wait for a fall concert in a stadium teeming with aging baby boomers and their children. Only a band fronted by powerhouse Mick Jagger sells forty thousand tickets, many at four hundred fifty bucks each, and only a primal beat motivates people to wade through humanity first in the parking lot and then slowly into the stadium and into lines where bracelets are attached to those with tickets to the infield and next at the gate where we finally step down onto the field and then struggle through a restricted path that leads to seats fifty to a hundred yards from the massive, four-story structure on the floor of which The Stones will play.

Soon sad news arrives that Mick and the lads won’t be appearing for a couple of hours. Rather than revile the rockers for inefficiency or greed, we applaud their sales acumen. Beer flows, mounds of souvenirs are sold, stories are exchanged, and most fans realize they’re buying not only the live music of The Rolling Stones but their memories of that music and a slice of themselves, entwined with the band, three or four decades ago. As a result of the revelry, long lines extend to the doors of the men’s bathrooms and far out the doors of the ladies’, and soon there are almost as many women as men in the men’s rooms, and the women were smiling.

“If we went in theirs, we’d be arrested,” one man says.

“I wonder if I should slip a note to that one,” his friend responds.

From a stall exits a cherubic young man who could’ve been the grandson of ole Mick. The lad raises both arms, clenches his fists, closes his eyes, and yells, “The Rolling Fucking Stones.” And boomers cheer.

Back in my seat I calculate ticket prices times attendance times concessions and parking fees and estimate The Rolling Stones tonight will generate fifteen to twenty million dollars. We know our corporate enemies become avaricious and slothful when paydays are assured, even when their bumbling has precluded profit. What would The Stones do? They’d bring it every song. Exuding energy and passion, Mick Jagger pouts and points and prances as he performs, and often finishes classics like “Start Me Up,” “Tumblin’ Dice,” “Honky Tonk Women,” and “Jumping Jack Flash” with graceful bows and two-handed kisses slowly extended to the audience. More than halfway into the concert a center portion of the stage detaches and moves The Stones straight ahead into the midst of the masses, which has essentially been watching a closed circuit event on a giant screen behind the stage. Now the boys pass close by, and Mick’s legs are startlingly skinny but his stomach ripped, and creative soulmate Keith Richards bears a lined and haggard face after years of cigarette smoking and other pharmacological abuse. Drummer Charlie Watts and guitarist Ronnie Wood earnestly support the stars.

Great financial leaders like The Rolling Stones understand the need to share good fortune. Mick Jagger certainly knows, when he sings a duet with a robust female backup singer, that his soulful but husky voice will be overwhelmed by the lady’s hormonal youth and clarity. He doesn’t try to undermine her. He keeps singing and smiling and gesturing as if delivering a tour de force. For many of the songs, he does. And he and The Rolling Stones will continue to excel not only in the musical arena but on the international stage which has been cleared for them to orchestrate our economies in the same way they’re doing their “A Bigger Bang” tour that sells four and a half million tickets for a hundred forty seven concerts in thirty-two countries and generates more than half a billion dollars. Put these lads in charge and things’ll be all right.