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.