Ben? Ben? Wake up! You were having that awful nightmare again, the one where you dreamed you were Fed Chairman and the market was tanking and you were running in place and couldn't get anywhere? I've been reading up on recurring nightmares. Let's practice Cataclysm Therapy.
Right. I want you to lie down and re-enter that dream. What do you see?
Market pushing through bedrock, down another 500 points, check. What else?
You see yourself in the bunker with the Fed governors, handing out the cyanide capsules, okay. Now what? A 5 percent interest cut, bringing rates down to, uh, minus 3 percent? Stop right there! Let's rewrite the script, as we Cataclysm Therapists say.
Now listen carefully. I want you to imagine embracing doom. It's our shadow side, like those Junkians or whatever they're called talk about. We need a disaster to make us whole, and it's your throw, baby.
I want you to visualize an infinitely deep well. Too much? All right, try this. A million printing presses, in every city and town in this great land, all of them printing $1,000,000 bills, 24/7. Forget that helicopter drop, are you having Vietnam flashbacks? I want you to see every computer printer in every home and office printing those million dollar bills. For minorities, $2,000,000 bills. What? Well, ask Congress to raise the debt limit by another 50 quadrillion and give 'em all computers and printers. Come on, Ben, get up to speed!
Now think up another war, and make it a cracker this time, not another silly training exercise like Iraq. Iran? You must be joking. Ben, think big. Not Iranian goofballs. Think Russia. Remember the '50s, how those hula-hoops rolled off the assembly lines and we built all those missiles with gorgeous tail fins and we were prosperous? And that was without even a shootin' war. Getting any ideas? Right! Bring it on!
Now let's do some brainwashing, er, brain scanning, no, what do you call it, storm draining or something. Don't limit your imagination. Eh? Send everybody an air conditioner to stimulize them? Keep going. You're on the right track. Five hundred lottery tickets for every man, woman, child, cat, dog, and parakeet? A thousand for every minority parakeet? Great. Keep going!
Guest appearances for everyone on American Idol? Check. A date with Jessica Alba or George Clooney, each to his or her choice? You're getting in the groove, Ben! No, don't start second guessing yourself. What do you mean, there aren't enough of Jessica and George for everybody? Clone 'em! Stop limiting yourself — you're the government, and you're here to help!
Say what? Sell Treasury bonds to extraterrestrials? Ben, I've gotta hand it to you. You're the man.
2 comments:
''Say what? Sell Treasury bonds to extraterrestrials? Ben, I've gotta hand it to you. You're the man.''
LOL!
Something over the past two weeks you may have overlooked, it was a clip from the Comedy Central 'Daily Show' that compared Bush's speech in March 17,2003 to his speech of Sept. 24,2008.
You can see it here: http://tinyurl.com/4tfj42. Sorry about the rather vulgar term in it but you still should see it.
The point it makes is obvious, the speech and delivery of same are a close match despite the difference of over five years and the subject of the address the overall theme is the same; ''We must act!!! We must act now!!! Nothing else will work!!! And if we don't, the result will be complete and total catastrophe!!!''
We all saw the results of the March 17,2003 speech and it was nothing short of a (still ongoing) debacle.
And what will the result of the bailout/rescue/pink fluffy bunnies plan? Take money, flush down toilet, rinse and repeat forever.
BTW, if you thought ''You know, I bet that $700 billion was merely a made up number''. Yeah, you're right.
Also, if you want to meet 'Mr. Housing Bubble' now you can.
Before you click on the link and scroll down to the first house photo be sure to fully swallow whatever you're drinking!
When you see the price below the photo you'll know why I said that.
YIH,
The prices cited by "Mr. Housing Bubble" are a parody, right? No?
The tickets for these houses are completely disconnected from market value, of course. They are legacies of a gaming of the system that prevailed until a short while ago, in which people who should never have been given loans were eagerly courted by banks, who didn't care because they knew they could package the mortgages and and sell them to other institutions. Then the buyers would "flip" their purchases, the new owners getting another liar loan, and so on and so on.
Mr. Bubble's posting is funny and clever, but also sad. In times past, houses like these might have sold for what they were worth (not much), been bought by working class families — including many who worked in the building trades — and been genuine "fixer-uppers." Occupied by resident owners, not speculators, they would have been an asset not only for their inhabitants but for the communities surrounding them.
Ironically, the American dream of home ownership was more realistic under the old free market system than it became once the federal government entered the picture with its political pressures to provide ultimately nonperforming loans to broaden the ownership base.
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