After decades, Archie Andrews in the comic books is proposing to Veronica Lodge. Whether the story arc is legit and it will result with a wedded Archie and Veronica, I leave that up to the writers and only time will tell. From a business point of view, I think Archie is making a good choice. Note that I am not saying anything about him being in love because historically, Archie changes his mind about as many times as a five year old in a candy store. Like most of us, Mr. Andrews has wanted it all. He has chased after Betty and Veronica and for all I know, Miss Grundy if he were drunk enough. Sorry, Archie doesn’t drink alcohol. It would mean if Archie were – ah, never mind.
Veronica has a certain amount of upper class spoiled brat and is a schemer so the chances are that if he can curb her spending so that she doesn’t blow through the Lodge fortune in one generation (and most family fortunes are gone within two generations tops) Archie and whatever he spawns as children and grand-Archie and Veronica-children can live somewhat decently.
Let us say that they can get 3% interest rates on the money that they will share in from the Lodge estate. Not privy to their net worth (in the millions at least?) they should do okay and that should help Archie even if he can only get a job as a soda jerk.
Mr. Lodge would get his potential son-in-law’s butt in gear and get him going to a good college and studying finance so he can help manage and carry on the wealth making that Veronica is going to need since she will probably spend through it like waste through a goose otherwise.
I love Betty but Archie really has taken advantage of her over the years and frankly, I suspect that she would do anything that Archie would want and that would mean that there is the potential down the line for Archie to come back from work and have a business scheme from Big Moose and Jughead to build “I heart Mr. Weatherbee” T-shirt machines and that would ruin whatever money they would have saved.
Archie would then have to borrow money from the Lodges and knowing Veronica, she would have some scheme cooked up to mess with Archie, Betty and by then, their six or eight kids.
Of course, I could be wrong about all this (and probably am) but I tend to also think that deep down Betty is the better bet as a finance person if she weren’t so deeply in love with Archiekins. Her ability to come through in a pinch, come up with cash, make products for Arch on a moment’s notice (school projects, fix cars, etc) make her a better single long term investment than the hedonistic tendencies of the said Veronica Lodge.
But the Lodge fortune is a healthy draw and if you were in Archie’s shoes, had Mom and Pop in financial trouble, Big Ethel trying to blackmail you into marriage to get Jughead Jones jealous (try saying that six times with a mouth filled with water – wait, don’t), you will opt for an easy way out and want to marry into money too.
After all, isn’t Archie just living the reverse American dream? Aren’t girls also taught to be “self-sufficent” and yet “marry a millionaire”. If you ask a lot of girls who have married millionaires and then divorced them the chances are that they are also looking for guys more like Archie on the side. Young, hunky and fun. Once they have their money, they may or may not want somebody who is mature, intelligent and understanding. Or in the case of some moneymaking people – immature, dumb and selfish bastards.
There is always the chance that Archie deep down is some kind of financial genius who can figure out what will be the next great business sector invest in with the stock market, where to look for emerging markets (are their any left that haven’t been exploited yet?) and just a monetary gentle genius overall. Chances are though, between him and Veronica’s need to spend that they won’t make it again unless Mr. Lodge gets Arch on the financial straight and narrow. Repeating myself now so time to move on…
On a related note, I wonder if Big Moose is going to propose or even Jughead. Jughead could marry Big Ethel and it could turn out that she inherited a billion dollars or something while Archie loses his fortune with Veronica. That would be a hoot but I will let the writers for the comic strip do their own work. If they do happen to use any of my suggestions, please give me a shout out in the comic book.
Hope you all are enjoying a safe, healthy weekend and I will talk more with you next week. Be careful out there and good luck Archie. You will need it.
May 30 2009
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Kim Isaac Greenblatt
Archie, Good Business Move Proposing to Veronica