bizarreville

The second lesson of Obamanomics is Spending Carpe Diem…focus on today, not tomorrow or all that future generation crap, when it comes to government spending.  After all, no one knows what will happen in the future.  For all we know, there could be nuke wars, health pandemics, or other global catastrophies.  Why tighten our belts too much now?  How sad would it be to scrimp, save, sacrifice, and economize now, only to then have a nuclear holocaust that made all that tightening meaningless and irrelevant.  Carpe diem is the answer.  Here are some of the specific elements of Spending carpe diem:

1. Stop measuring and reporting Budget deficits, trade deficits, and National Debt numbers.  These figures just get people rattled, needlessly so since they can do nothing about them.  Make these numbers “need to know” high-security clearance available only, mostly just accessible to Financial Ultra-geeks sworn to secrecy.

2. Ramp up all government spending on new bridges to nowhere, new interstate highways that can save 3-4 minutes on a 200-mile trip, new ditches needing dug, new painting of rusty stuff.  Expand these programs until we run out of bodies to do the work, even after importing all the illegal aliens who want to come here.

3. Get rid of all that Debt ceiling raising approval malarky.  It is undeniably a totally worthless process:  a bunch of knucklehead congresspeople pretending to be managing something that they’re not really managing.  Seriously?  Why expend energy on anything so meaningless?  Wheelspinning takes much too much work.  Raise it to infinity and forget about it.

4. Don’t fret about the kids/grandkids factor anymore.  Let them figure it out on their own when they get there.  Don’t spoil them with a cushy world that has all their problems solved.  Just makes them lazy.  Our forefathers had to fight to survive, eek out a living, solve major problems like all the manure buildup on muddy city streets; there’s very little manure on streets nowadays.  What other societal problems will the kids have to work on?  They’ll figure it out.

5. Give increases, perqs, and new benefits to all government civil servants.  They are, after all, servants of the people.  And even though they are servants, they almost never get a tip.  No 15% of the check, or 18% for parties of 5 or more.  All they get is a base wage, maybe some free coffee, doughnuts, a parking spot, and a couple dozen holidays per year.  We need to show them that we appreciate them.  No better way than boosting their salaries 20-25%.  It will make them happier, and certainly more productive as they push their endless piles of paperwork, file stuff by the traincar load, and unravel or re-ravel red tape.  And the raises will boost their demeanor as they don new smiling faces while dealing with citizens trying to get licenses, permits,and food stamps…no more of gruff old Bertha snapping heads off because their paperwork is filed incorrectly.

6. Expand all regulations and tighten all enforcement to provide jobs to permit writers, lawyers, and enforcement goons.  And, accompanying that will be new bulging administrative staffs to help these new government officials with various wiping functions.

7. Require every legal, semi-legal, and non-legal document to be notarized.  Make Notary Publics full time positions to increase jobs.  Establish some Notary-specialized colleges that offer advanced degrees in the art/science of notarizing.  Establish a new cabinet-level position, Secretary of Notarization Controls to ensure that non-notarized documents become a thing of the past.

The Spending Carpe Diem approach will reduce the stress and strain on stock markets worldwide.  With no data to get flustered about, markets can go back to just worrying about the success or patheticness of their respective business sectors.

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the economic lessons.

Bizarreville will feature a series of economic lessons which will attempt to illustrate the principles of Obamanomics in order to better educate the public on how these elements will stir the economy to fast, sustainable growth for the short term and long term.  The first lesson is the Trickle-up theory.

First, we must debunk the preposterous trickle-down theory.  This flawed theory believed that tax benefits given to the high-end of the paying spectrum would incent these business leaders to invest the windfalls into expanding their businesses, creating more economic growth, new jobs, new research and development into product and service improvements.  Of course, as anyone can see, the truth is that the rich guys just squander the wealth on larger neo-xanadu’s, barns full of classic Oldsmobiles, ridiculous amounts of philanthropy that generate no wealth, 48-dollar aged steak entrees at their exclusive snooty clubs, and vacations at Bertha’s Vineyard.

A better theory is the Trickle-up theory.  This idea starts with giving big tax breaks to people who pay no tax.  Unquestionably, these dollars will immediately go into consumer spending for twinkies, bar tabs, Lotto tickets, premium brand cigarettes, Natty Lights, grazings at the golden corral troughs, and jaunts to ripoff casino boats…the foundations of sustainable economic growth.  But, more importantly, these immediate actions will then have ripple effects that will generate even higher economic activity:

– Increases in junk food consumption will generate rises in obesity, spurring escalated activity in weight-loss plans, and new clothing purchases as the old XL sizes no longer fit and must be replaced with 3XL.  Stretch pants that have gone beyond stretch limits will need to be discarded and upsized.

– Associated increases in medical treatment spending as heart disease, lung cancer, and diabetes rise.  Pharmaceutical R&D  spending will increase to find new cures for new epidemic-level ills and new surefire weight loss pills.

– Job growth, as the need for new cops rises to handle increasing drug trade, and WalMart fights between customers for that last flowery size 22 blouse or chintzy video game.

– Weapons and ammunition sales increases as people want additional personal protection from drug thugs and parking place stealers.

– Expanded garage sales, to redeploy newly outgrown clothing.

– Exciting upgrades to trailer homes, by purchase of new curtains, indoor/outdoor carpeting for living rooms, and cheesy landscape artwork for their simulated paneling walls…the latter spawning a new generation of low-end artists who previously had struggled getting real jobs due to lack of motivation and/or lack of desire to wake up early in the morning.

The new flurry of economic activity will prompt creation of new, innovative discount store concepts.  These new retailers will find new ways to merchandise bargain basement goods to a group seeking the ultimate discount on flimsy stuff they didn’t even know they needed.  Some discount chains may conceivably even add check-out cashiers to ease the mile-long check-out lines…although this is considered by many analysts to be wishful thinking.

The trickle-up theory is a more practical concept in that assumptions do not need to be made in terms of how the recipients will act on their new benefits.  The tricklers will spend them immediately, as their past practice has proven…no ifs, ands, maybes, or wait and sees.  Historical data has proven this behavior to be true:  that there will be no stash-aways into some future college fund, or rainy-day fund.  It will be spent, and spent quickly…and begin the leveraging effect of widespread economic activity that will produce jobs.  The trickle-up theory is one that more and more wise people are glomming onto, and represents a foundation of new progressive thought.

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, including economic lessons.