True story I swear. A few months ago I was driving my car to my accountant’s office to get a running tally on the financial damage inflicted in 2008 and I noticed a car in front of me driving with something dragging beside it. As I approached closer I realized it was in fact a long hose…with a gas pump handle attached to it, still inserted into the fuel tank. Yes, this driver had been pumping gas (the pump handle color protruding from the tank seemed to indicate that Super Unleaded was the grade of choice selected that morning) and proceeded to drive off, thus ripping the entire gas pump handle and connected hose still attached to the car. You just can’t make this stuff up. My first reaction was tear inducing laughter followed soon after with morbid curiosity to see if I would look in my rear view mirror and find a huge fireball erupting from the unlucky gas station that fell victim to this mindless act, right out of a scene from Terminator. Looks like the emergency gas shut off valve thankfully did its job.
What would preoccupy someone to the extent that they would do such a thing? You would think that the sound of the equipment ripping from the main housing of the gas pump as the car drove away would have alerted the guy that his gas bill that month immediately jumped about $1000 but the only thing that finally got his attention was another car driver frantically waving to pull over. I would have done it myself but I was too busy looking for my camera. Never did get the shot.
Could it possibly be the force feeding of 24 hour cable news programs and front page headlines tracking the economic armageddon that is currently unfolding that is making us all feel and act like zombies who’s fate is already sealed? Maybe the guy finally opened up his 401K statement and realized he’ll now be working till he’s 93 before he can retire. It’s just depressing to see the headlines get bleaker by the day. I’ll know I’m on to something here if I drive up to refill only to see the gas pump handle missing from pump #16 at my local Arco. But then again I’m a regular unleaded kind of guy.
The consensus from the TV pundits and financial “experts” is that the economy will not recover until some semblance of confidence is restored in the average consumer. These consumers who have been on a drunken spending credit fueled spending spree the last 10 years have finally started hording cash with concerns about their job and keeping their home. Overall that’s a good thing but with consumer spending driving over 50% of the U.S. GDP annually, coupled with the bad debt the banks continue to carry, it’s not hard to imagine a languishing economy dragging on for years.
So here’s my contribution on how to fix the economy on the cheap. Have the government secretly buy up all the media companies. The T.V. stations, the newspapers, the radio stations, even my kids school newspaper, who by the way is tracking how the economic fallout is having an effect on what’s in their lunch boxes every day. The BSFI (Bologna sandwich frequency index) is at a level not seen since Oscar Meyer first introduced that meat travesty over 80 years ago.
You have to figure that with the shrinking value in traditional media formats falling off a cliff, the all-in price for picking these all up would be a rounding error compared to these economic stimulus packages congress keeps passing. Once that transaction is complete, the government embraces it’s inner propagandist and immediately starts a new “feel good” campaign to get the consumer confidence back on track. I imagine the headline on the Wall Street Journal Monday morning reading something like
Fed Chairman – “We forgot to carry the 1. Our Bad” Economy back on track.
That would be followed up with a reshuffling of the TV lineup allowing the cancellation of the Sunday morning political talk shows and replaced with extended showings of Access Hollywood. Nancy Grace would anchor the nightly news and Billy Bush would go to jail forever (if we only get that it’s worth the price alone) 60 Minutes would air at 4am on every 4th Wednesday and the headline in my kids school newspaper would report on the sudden drop in the BSFI. Shares in Peanut Butter would skyrocket. Let’s hope so..my broker put what’s left in my 401K in shares of Skippy.
Oh and just for kicks we’d announce that the next Super Bowl halftime show would feature the execution of the next CEO that gives out another bonus to any executive in the financial sector that helped drag us into this economic meltdown in the first place.
Atleast if I had my way….
