Friday May 2

Just another econ job

By Malcolm Fleschner / Humor Columnist

Reluctant as many of us are to admit it, it's time we faced the unpleasant fact that the economy is in serious trouble. Frankly, my pessimism merely increases every time President Bush holds another press conference to desperately insist that the economy is doing fine. The problem is that I'm never quite sure whether he's describing the economy or a prize-winning Brahma bull he's been secretly raising in the White House barnyard.

"The economy is strong," he'll say. "The economy is healthy, it's robust. It's growing stronger every day. Why, just yesterday I got all of my top advisers together to go check it out and let me tell you, that sucker is looking good, I swear."

Which is not to say that the president is unaware of our pressing economic "challenges." Still, he cautions us not to be fooled by what the "experts" tell us about key economic indicators like rising unemployment, a weakening dollar, record-high gas prices, the housing crisis, a sharp uptick in people on the street trying to sell you their kidneys, etc.

What the president is willing to concede is that we're in an economic "slowdown," which is not to be confused with a downturn, a recession or - perish the thought - a depression. These are the kind of distinctions that economists on TV get all excited over but which average Americans find more difficult to follow, mainly because our television sets have been repossessed.

The truth is that even economists don't really understand how the economy works. Oh sure, they'll try, diligently poring over the nation's GNP, the CPI and the GDP, not to mention the PPI, the APR and the NASDAQ, but they always eventually arrive at the same conclusion ("Wait a minute, these are just a bunch of letters!").

The TV news shows, whose job is to explain the complexities of the national economic picture to us, don't do much better. Generally, the only economic news they report, besides offering clips from the president's latest press conference ("The economy's got big, strong haunches. It's got sharp, powerful horns ...") is to briefly describe the day's Wall Street activity. Except this "news" always consists of inexplicable cause-and-effect statements like, "The Dow dropped sharply today on reports of lower than expected sunspot activity" or "Stocks were up in heavy trading today on news that Reese Witherspoon may be getting breast implants."

So what's actually causing our slumping economy? In his most recent press conference the president blamed - get ready for a shocker - the Democrats. Others, however, point to the astronomical trade deficit that has put trillions of dollars in the hands of Chinese investors while driving up our national debt. The joke is on the Chinese, however, because our currency's value has plummeted to the point where the treasury department now imprints on every dollar bill the words, "Actual value: 1/20 of a coupon for Dawn liquid soap."

Fear of China's dollar acquisition reminds me of the uproar back in the 1980s when some Japanese investors paid $850 million for a majority share of New York's Rockefeller Center, home to, among other enterprises, NBC studios. Commentators roundly condemned this perceived insult to our collective pride, arguing that such a national treasure shouldn't fall into the hands of faceless foreigners when it could instead belong to a well-known American jerk like Donald Trump. Still, at the time I couldn't help wonder whether the sellers weren't smirking as they pocketed the $850 million check, saying to their Japanese benefactors, "Congratulations! You are now the proud owners of a skating rink and the place where 'Search for Tomorrow' is taped. Enjoy!"

The latest piece of bad economic news is the global food shortage. The crisis has even reached our shores, where last week the Sam's Club warehouse store chain announced that, while we face no actual shortage yet, the store would be restricting customers to purchases of four 20-lb. bags of rice per visit. Now be honest, upon hearing this news, wasn't your first reaction to think, "Jeez, I'd better get down to Sam's Club for some bags of rice pronto"? Even though you don't buy bags of rice, you may not even eat rice and you have no idea where the nearest Sam's Club is?

But that's just the way human nature works - tell us we can't have something and we'll want it all the more. Why, just look at health care. Still, this ingrained response to perceived scarcity may provide the solution to the trade deficit. We simply need to come up with a list of items we have lying around the country that no one has any use for, like American-made cars and large swaths of the Midwest, and then tell the Chinese that we're sorry but these items are only available in limited quantities. We can start by offering them Donald Trump.


E-mail Malcolm Fleschner with your solutions to our economic woes that don't involve him selling off body parts at Malcolm@CultureShlock.com.