http://www.theonion.com/content/node/82504
Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In
July 14, 2008 | Issue 44 o 29
WASHINGTON--A panel of top business leaders testified before Congress
about the worsening recession Monday, demanding the government provide
Americans with a new irresponsible and largely illusory economic bubble
in which to invest.
"What America needs right now is not more talk and long-term strategy,
but a concrete way to create more imaginary wealth in the very
immediate future," said Thomas Jenkins, CFO of the Boston-area Jenkins
Financial Group, a bubble-based investment firm. "We are in a crisis,
and that crisis demands an unviable short-term solution."
Enlarge Image Recession Expert
A prominent finance expert asks Congress to help Americans rebuild
their ficticious dreams.
The current economic woes, brought on by the collapse of the so-called
"housing bubble," are considered the worst to hit investors since the
equally untenable dot-com bubble burst in 2001. According to investment
experts, now that the option of making millions of dollars in a short
time with imaginary profits from bad real-estate deals has disappeared,
the need for another spontaneous make-believe source of wealth has
never been more urgent.
"Perhaps the new bubble could have something to do with watching movies
on cell phones," said investment banker Greg Carlisle of the New York
firm Carlisle, Shaloe & Graves. "Or, say, medicine, or shipping. Or
clouds. The manner of bubble isn't important--just as long as it
creates a hugely overvalued market based on nothing more than whimsical
fantasy and saddled with the potential for a long-term accrual of debts
that will never be paid back, thereby unleashing a ripple effect that
will take nearly a decade to correct."
"The U.S. economy cannot survive on sound investments alone," Carlisle
added.
Congress is currently considering an emergency economic-stimulus
measure, tentatively called the Bubble Act, which would order the
Federal Reserve to begin encouraging massive private investment in
some fantastical financial scheme in order to get the nation's false
economy back on track.
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Michael