Consequences of the Great Recession
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Do Not Underestimate the adaptations to this recession.
Adapted from an anonymous email:
On Downsizing:
CEO’s who signed up with tax payer dollars for the Bill Clinton “Bite Your Lip and Prosper” Seminars, are now playing miniature golf in their new indoor recreation area containing a small surfing wave.
Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen. Petrobras hired them and 10 more with money loaned by the Ex-im Bank.
This from the Odd Obituary Column in a local paper. “LaniLu, the wealthy Queen of the Pole at a famous local club was killed when her audience enthusiastically showered her with rolls of pennies while she danced.”
Another friend confided to me in astonishment that while attending a meeting in Europe of his favorite Abrahamic Faith Initiatitve that he broke bread with both a Mormon and a Sheik who admitted they had to let all but two of their wives go since they could not treat them equally.
Some Beverly Hills children are rejoicing that they get to have dinner and a movie with their parents since the nanny had been let go.
When Bill and Hillary travel together they now share a room. And she bites her lip now, can you blame her?
On Banking:
A close friend who I would trust with cash, told me her bank returned her check marked “Insufficient Funds,.” Only in person did her banker relutantly admitted her account had “money” in it, but theirs didn’t since they paid back part of TARP.
Via snail mail from that very same bank, one of the 2010 Dodd-Frank bill’s still to big to fail banks, a different friend and neighbor who I would not trust with cash, claimed he received an unsolicited pre-declined credit card.
Creditors everywhere are becoming more demanding in payment of debts. My cousin had an exorcism but couldn’t afford to pay for it so the Church re-possessed him.
Our Government:
A truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico. They were immediately jailed by Mexican authorities overnight and deported with US money for the war on drugs.
Congress says they are looking into this Bernard Madoff scandal. Thank goodness we have experienced people on the job who know the territory. Bernie only made $50 Billion disappear, our 435 elected jivers with grandiose pensions just for getting elected, bested David Copperfield Lady Liberty gig by making $1.5 Trillion disappear, all the while leaving a trial for future Trillions. Maybe all they want is to shut him up.
The Media:
And this, which I could hardly believe from a late afternoon caller to The Ed Shultz Show: “I was so depressed last night thinking about the economy, wars, jobs, my savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc., I called the Suicide Hotline. I was connected to a call center in Pakistan, and, when I told them I was suicidal, they got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck.” Shultz told him to hang up and never come back unless he finishes his sensitivity training.
Andy Borowitz takes up the mantel of Chief Demagogue of Ideas, anointing Paul Ryan as the next Kevorkian as a meanie Republican with a plan to do more. “The Boro” for his friends is known in formal circles as Borosilicate because he gets so overblown and can still take the heat as Practioners of Demagoguery must learn to do even though he mixes what he wants some to believe and react to politically and some to just laugh at. His tribe knows which is which.
As a first step to memorialize the work of Dr. Kevorkian, Rep. Ryan said that his new budget plan would replace Medicare with a system of so-called “Kevouchers” that could be redeemed for cyanide pills, nooses and bullets.
In other political news, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) suffered another setback today, in the form of these harsh words of criticism from former President Bill Clinton: “In my day, we’d show it to ‘em in person.”
The avalanche of ridicule suffered by Rep. Weiner in recent days finally drew some pushback from a member of the congressman’s staff.
“It is time for all of these babyish ‘wiener’ jokes to stop,” said new Weiner spokesman Hugh G. Rection.
Elsewhere, a new study shows that when you talk on your cell phone everyone around you can hear every fucking word you’re saying.
As an alter ego pyschologist he must well understand what Erich Fromm meant, as he is quoted here by Trish-Roberts Miller:
Demagoguery is polarizing propaganda that motivates members of an ingroup to hate and scapegoat some outgroup(s), largely by promising certainty, stability, and what Erich Fromm famously called “an escape from freedom.” It significantly undermines the quality of public argument for reasons and in ways discussed below. In the most abstract, the reason it is so harmful is that it creates and fosters a situation in which it is actively dangerous to criticize dominant views, cultures, and political groups. It makes discourse a kind of coercion, largely through rousing and appealing to hate. Thus, the very people who make the decisions cannot hear all the information they need. Historically, demagoguery is a precursor to the ending of democracy—that is, when demagogues succeed, their first move is almost always to restrict the power of the people or parliaments in favor of some kind of tyrannical or totalitarian system.
The Chief of Hypocrisy says The Chief of Demagoguery “significantly undermines the quality of public argument” and “makes discourse a kind of coercion, largely through rousing and appealing to hate” perhaps hoping “the very people who make the decisions cannot hear all the information they need.”
He has succeeded in using his constitutionally protected speech “to restrict the power of the people or parliaments” by demonizing Ryan and his serious efforts to deal with reality in a meaningful and pragmatic way, albeit in a politically incorrect way in the view of the Chief of Demagoguery. Perhaps he desires a “tyrannical or totalitarian system” that will dictate rather than discuss proposals as Ryan is attempting.