Expedio5x5: Obamanomics For The Layman (And The Consequences)

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For the past five years, I’ve been earning $40,000 a year. But for all

those years, I’ve been spending $60,000 a year.

How do I survive, running this $20,000 annual deficit? Well, I’ve been paying close attention to how the U.S. Congress runs our affairs, and I’ve learned some good lessons.

I make up the difference by borrowing $20,000 a year from Guido (right). My wife knows I’ve been borrowing to make up for this deficit, but she doesn’t know from whom, and she hasn’t asked too many questions (sort of like the majority of her fellow taxpayers).

What she also doesn’t know is that when it’s time to pay Guido, I’ve been borrowing money from Vinnie (left, a few years ago, when he was in... state care).

I also never told her that if I don’t find a way to pay them, I’m going to end up getting my legs broken, or worse.

Of course, stuffy old traditional economists would say that I have do do one or more of the following four things to pay off my debts, and get myself out of this mess once and for all:

Increase my earnings
Cut my spending
Sell off some of my assets
Ask for charity

With the advent of Obamanomics™, however, I realized that I don’t need to do any of those things anymore!!! I explained it all to my wife.

Her response was... not what I expected. More on that later.

Basically, I told her that I’m going to increase my spending to $100,000 a year. I’m going to devote this $60,000 deficit to things that will make us feel better about ourselves, and pave the way for higher potential future earnings for our kids and grandkids.

First, we're going to get aluminum siding for the house. Why should we have to live with unsightly peeling paint each year, and be humiliated in front of our neighbors? It will boost our self-esteem, and provide “stimulus” to local contractors --- especially union folks, who like me, voted for Obama.

Second, we’re going to get a new home theater system, and new computers for everyone in the house. After all, when the kids go over to their friends’ houses and see their all-new electronics, and all the new gaming and educational software that are available for them, it hurts their self-esteem, and makes them wonder, why can’t we too have the very best? It’s not fair!

Third, we’re going to donate a certain portion of this money to Obama-affiliated community organizations such as ACORN. They’re fighting for the “rights” of exploited citizens like me, but they can’t do it without donations. Remember, it's like Peggy Joseph said (below), with the advent of Obamanomics™...

"...I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car, I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage... if I help him, he's gonna help me!!!"

And that's the way it will work with me donating to Obama-affiliated nonprofits, too.

Fourth, we’re going to get a new minivan, with all the goodies. Each time I or my wife has to drop off or pick up the kids from school, their friends’ homes and parties, they ask why we’re the only ones who aren’t driving the latest model. It hurts their social standing, and by getting a new minivan, they won’t feel so ostracized. Plus, this will also help to stimulate the economy.

Now at this point, you may be asking, as my wife did, “If you aren’t going to find a way to pay down our debt, how in the hell are you going to afford another $40,000 a year deficit, on top of the $20,000 deficit we can't afford now?”

Here comes the magic of Obamanomics™, as I explained to my wife:

As the kids will be out of high school soon, and with all the self-esteem boosting efforts we’ll have undertaken, I figure their earning power should be out of this world. So while other kids are working at McDonalds or in low-wage labor, with Obamanomics™, ours should be able to pull down at least fifty or sixty grand a year part-time, a good part of which will go to paying off our debt.

Neither Guido nor Vinnie were confident in my projections.

So I signed a contract with them, legally obliging our kids and grandkids to pay whatever debt I don't pay off. That pacified them for a few weeks, until they actually met our kids. At that point, Guido predicted that my under-educated XBOX-freaks would never earn more than minimum wage, and that I'd have to do better --- or else.

I explained that this is precisely the social compact that our generation, via our Obamanomic™ government, will exact upon future generations, to pay for our excesses today... that our kids and grandkids will be taxed up the ying-yang to pay for what we're consuming now.

Vinnie and Guido said that inter-generational wealth-theft is "reprehensible." I was like, "Huh? You guys are loan-sharking gangsters... and you're telling me what's reprehensible? Yeah, right." They didn't find my attempt at humor to be funny.

So, I explained to my wife, I’m going to tell Guido and Vinnie that all I really have to do is to print up dollar bills on the fancy new computers that I’ll be getting for the kids. They’ll be exact copies of the ones that I’ve been borrowing from one to pay to the other, and as no one will be able to tell the difference, they’ll be as good as the real deals!!!

After all, I said, five days after the Chinese government expressed concern about the $1 trillion in securities that it bought from the U.S. government, Obama ordered the Treasury to print up $1 trillion in fresh dollar bills. Basically, he just printed money up out of thin air. So, if it's good enough for our government, it has to be good enough for me, right?

Next, I told the wife, while old stuffy economists would say that I’m tripling our annual deficit, from $20,000 to $60,000 a year, Obamanomics™ doesn't work that way. See, despite Guido's and Vinnie's pessimism, I still project that our kids’ earnings alone will actually enable me to cut our deficit in half within three years, to “only” $30,000 a year. When she pointed out that our deficit is actually growing by 50%, I reminded her of the fact that even though Obama is planning to triple America's annual deficit in the next three years, he claims that he'll be cutting it in half.

Further, no one we see on the TV news is saying there's anything wrong with his math, and our kids' teachers are saying nothing's wrong with his plan. So I asked her, why's she getting all in my face about this? I told her that according to my Obamanomics™-inspired plan, I’m actually being fiscally responsible, and will be doing good for our family, and the economy in general, in the long run.

Besides, I told her, it doesn’t really matter anyway – because by the time Guido and Vinnie catch on to any flaws in my grand plan, she and I will be long gone… so screw ‘em!!! Let them go try to collect the money from our kids, or grandkids!!!

I figured I’d share all this with her before I presented my plan to Guido and Vinnie, thinking that she’d leap into my arms, pepper me with kisses, and thank me for being the wise, inspired provider that she hoped she’d married.

Instead... her reaction was... well, look what she did to me:

The doctors tell me that I should be getting out of the hospital within five or six months.

And this, after all I tried to do to... I mean, for our family...

Epilogue

I’m going to be sending my medical bills directly to the White House, and cc’ing them to Congress. fter all, Obamanomics™ is what got me, an innocent victim, into this mess, and I fully expect our public servants to get me out of it.

I think there’s a passage in the Constitution about that – something about “the general welfare”? I learned about that in the government-run school I went to. And even if there isn’t such a passage in that old, musty document, there damn well ought to be. Yes we can!!!

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Obamanomics For The Layman (And The Consequences)

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