Economists, politicians, and anyone else enamored with the money business- interest rates, national productivity, available inventory of durable goods (whatever the Hell that means!) each find their own fascination as to how to detect a weakening economy; is it the shrinking equity of the stock market, lack of consumer spending, or, have the Japanese stopped buying all of Hawaii?
Please, give me a panic button!
And, of course, we had that fellow Greenspan. The dude spent half of each day soaking himself in a tub digesting statistical data which, supposedly, gave him the evidence and inspiration he needed to make suggestions, or innuendos, raise or lower interest rates, and do whatever else a guy does with his job title.
He should have spent more time using a skin moisturizer and less time soaking his prune –like ass given the state of my checking account.
I confess that I have only a High School diploma (and, from a dubious High School, at that) but – I have a better idea about understanding this thing and it’s really simple!
The state of the economy has nothing whatsoever to do with all those funny up and down graphs the experts are always pointing to on the Telly.
If you need to know what is going on with our current and future economic situation, simply go to a local bar.
The first thing you will want to do is to look for men who are wearing white T-shirts and white trousers. These folks are called painters. If they have no paint on their clothing they are referred to as: Unemployed Painters!
Now comes the fun part:
Take the total seating capacity of the establishment (remember to use bars only – this theory will not work at Burger King); now, get a quick count of the number of painters without paint on their uniforms, take that number and make a fraction of it in terms of the seating capacity. For example, if the seating capacity is 100 and the total of paint-less painters is 5, the percentage is 5 per cent. This number equates to 5 per cent unemployment in the building trades nationally. Note: painters who have some paint on their clothing only count as half a point.
Now this technique works for most occupations: salesmen, plumbers, ditch diggers, etc. It will not work for government workers – who never get laid off, even when they are not needed to begin with!
It also doesn’t work with dentists who generate their own demand by yanking a tooth or finding gingivitis every time they have a cash flow problem.
If you have any questions, call me at the local bar.
I’m starting my own job title: Writers Who Don’t Get Paid For Writing!
Billy P.
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