[lbo-talk] Onion: Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Wed Jul 16 10:31:45 PDT 2008


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.

<end excerpt>

Michael



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