You have fallen over and are lying on the floor, unable to get up. Meanwhile, the fuse on a large pile of dynamite has been lit 50 feet from you. It will, at the least, maim you if you do not get up and extinguish the fuse. You go through your pockets, but all you have is your wallet. You throw it at the fuse, hoping to knock it out, but it fails to do so. A friend walks into the room and says he will extinguish the flame with your wallet and then help you up.

Do you say: (a) "Thank you." (b) "Hmmm. I don't know. Let me think about it for a couple of weeks. There's nearly $100 in the wallet, plus I have to worry about what my friends will think if I accept help."

Sometimes, I am a historian. I can tell you that writing about history is a much less annoying business than living through it. To watch Congress play to the gallery this week in the face of global calamity was to experience exactly what the citizens of Rome must have felt when Nero played the violin as his city burned to the ground (was it Nero or Yehudi Menuhin? I forget).

Aiding and abetting these clowns was the media, which rushed in to demonstrate its jealousy of those who have real jobs and real compensation packages. Stephen Sackur of BBC News said: "Governments are bailing out the global economy with hundreds of billions of dollars. This is not how capitalism is supposed to work."

It is, of course, exactly how capitalism is supposed to work.

Although I am sure that you, dear reader, are far, far brighter than the parade of clods called US Congressmen who filled our TV screens this week displaying their ignorance, maybe a little 101 on some aspects of global economics might help. Who knows, maybe a US Congressman will read this - if any of them can read.

The economic system we use is called capitalism. Although it is a human invention and therefore imperfect, theoretically, and often in practice, it rewards risk and responsibility. The greater the risk you take with your money or the greater the responsibility you shoulder in your work, the greater the reward you might derive.

The system, as I say, is far from perfect, but less far from perfect than any other system yet devised that can actually be put into practice. Much better systems have been invented, such as pure communism, but they do not work with human beings.

About four score years ago, everything went wrong in the global economy. It got fixed and then, barring the odd world war and this and that, everything went along until recently. Then, just like a Microsoft operating system, all kinds of things went wrong at once. The blue screen of economic death appeared. When that happens, it is understood to be the job of governments to step in and restart the programme. That is the name of that game, and it is the only game in town. Without a government backstop, nothing would work. It is the bedrock on which confidence is built.

There is an expectation that if you do the right things all your life, you will not be dumped in the doo-doo by circumstances. If those who have successfully managed their affairs all their lives are about to be punished because too many others have proved unable to repay their debts, the good guys expect protection, and deserve it.

Under the capitalist system, if you borrow more than you can afford to pay back, you are on your own, pal. It is hard cheese and all that, but life is not fair (for instance, the taller you are, the more money you are likely to earn for doing the same work as a shorter person. Or, if you are an American, you will have a more comfortable life, pound for pound, than a Bangladeshi. Fair? No. True? Yes).

Capitalism is not only not fair, sometimes it is not logical either. Teachers and nurses are among our most important workers: they help us to learn and to heal. Yet we pay them poorly, perhaps because we think that a part of their reward is job satisfaction.

Doctors, on the other hand, make very great amounts of money in many parts of the capitalist world. The logic is that they can save or extend our lives, and therefore our ability to earn. Plus, we fear what we do not understand. If you have a bump on your elbow, it is scary and you do not care what it costs to have it removed and to be reassured that your elbow is once again properly elbonic.

Corporate life operates on much the same principle. Those at the bottom of the totem pole, such as cleaners, do not earn much, because they do not have much responsibility (although they may have unpleasant jobs. An education can keep you out of this category).

Receptionists and sales staff do not nominally have much more responsibility, but they could turn away business, say, by yakking on the phone and ignoring customers standing in front of them - so they earn a little more than a cleaner. And so on, up the food chain, to those at the very top, who have the greatest responsibility and so earn the most money.

That is a good system, even if you are not at its top. It has provided, for a long time, jobs and security for more than half of an ever-growing population, many of whom are buffoons. It may not be fair; you may not like it; you might even think it horrid - but it is the hand we have dealt ourselves, and we would all do well to get on and play the cards.

You must excuse me if I seem a little tetchy. Discovering this week that US politicians were prepared to play Russian roulette with our financial well-being, in order to enhance their re-election potential, was greatly dispiriting. I have not felt that way since Premier Alex Scott turned down help after Hurricane Fabian, abandoning us to our fate in the name of an agenda I did not, and still do not, understand.

By the way, I do not have a vote anywhere in the world, so I am the only one you cannot blame for any of this.

* * *

An advertisement for a receptionist in this newspaper's classified section last week said: "Bermudians, spouses of Bermudians and permanent residence certificate holders need only apply".

That means that all 50,000 people in those categories need only make an application to the company to win the job. Some of those people probably would not want to be a receptionist, but my guess is that a few thousand, including many of the Island's schoolchildren, homeless and drug addicts, would jump at the chance to earn a salary.

Plus, with several thousand receptionists, there would not be too much work for any one of them. If the company hired 5,000 receptionists to fill the one available position, each employee would only need to work for about six seconds a day.

A good class action lawyer would probably be able to insist that the company hire all his 5,000 clients. The ad could not have been clearer. The fly in this ointment is that an equally good lawyer, for the company, would likely insist that the receptionist's pay be spread evenly among all 5,000 jobholders, which would amount to about 15 cents a week each.

While that is better pay than most journalists make, it probably would not satisfy anyone else, even the homeless.