11.24.2004
Team America.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Yes, it's already Thanksgiving for me, although here they just call it "Thursday." At least they do if they speak English, anyway. Believe it or not, on this special day I have an important message for you. And, really, for all Americans. It is, of course, about the holiday we call Thanksgiving.
The thing is, I watch a lot of CNN International over here. Not because I care that much about the news, but because it's one of only three English language channels we get, the other two being some sort of weird ESPN that only has soccer and HBO Asia, which isn't worth watching because they only show really, really bad US movies, like The Bradys Go to Washington (what, you didn't see that in the theaters?) and pretty much anything by Vin Diesel. (Remember Knockaround Guys and Man on Fire? Yeah, me neither.)
So anyway, my point is that we basically only watch CNN. And what do they talk about twenty-four hours a day on CNN these days? Once an hour on the hour, or the hour plus five minutes or so? The decline and fall of the once mighty US Dollar, that's what. Or, as they put it, the "weak dollar." Seriously, for the last few weeks, every hour of CNN International programming has devoted ten to fifteen minutes on the weak dollar and what it means for both America and the rest of the world. As you might imagine, this is driving me totally and completely insane. Really, it is. And since I have, for now, little to no desire to go insane--unless I'm also really rich, so I can be "charmingly eccentric"--we have to band together to do something about this. (We meaning you, in this case.)
Now I have very little understanding of what makes the dollar weak, since I never took an Econ class in my life and Microsoft Money doesn't have a "weak dollar" button anywhere. However, since I am sure it cannot in anyway be due to the sound "don't tax (at all) and spend (billions and billions and billions)" fiscal policy of our Commander-in-Chief--otherwise we wouldn’t have reelected him, right?--it must be due to something else. What that something else is, I have no idea--see the beginning of this paragraph--but I do know one thing: taking two days off for Thanksgiving cannot help the US economy. So we--we again meaning you--need to give up Thanksgiving.
Yes, that's right. I'm asking you to give up Thanksgiving, two days where everyone spends a lot of money but no one, apart from thousands of grateful turkey farmers, makes any. This includes, most likely, the company you work for, who has to pay you for two entire days of zero productivity, which simply cannot be good for the bottom line. (I guess the people who put cranberries in a can also make money, since I’m guessing there's no other day of the year people buy that crap.)
Okay, that's a bit of a lie. I guess that retail stores rake in a fair amount of your not-hard-earned-because-I-have-two-days-off money on this coming Friday, since that's the day everyone will officially start their Christmas shopping. Don’t worry, those early birds among you can still do that. But you should do it a little differently this year. Instead of buying presents for your family, loved ones, dogs, cats, invisible friends, or whatever--presents that were probably made in some other country (like here) and therefore contribute to our trade deficit--you should only buy presents for me. Yes, that's right. Me.
Why? Because you'll be sending them out of the country to me--that is, exporting them. Trust me, it just makes sense. Think about it: you always here about how the US has a trade imbalance, importing billions and billions and billions of dollars worth of goods, but only exporting billions and billions to other countries. This is your chance to do something about it, to help America break even in the trade game and--in the process--possibly help give us all the strong dollar, or at least a middling one that won't get beat up by the hard-drinking British pound after a long afternoon of watching football at the pub, one that won't get sand kicked in its face by the effeminate, color-coordinated Euro when it goes to the beach. Needless to say, the more expensive the gift is--we have billions of dollars (albeit weak ones) to make up--the better, so don't skimp on my gifts. I am not exaggerating in any way when I say the very future of the country depends on this.
But don't just do it for me, although that would be nice of you. No, do it for the U-S-of-A; Old Glory; the red, the white, and the blue. Do it for George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, our underrated eleventh president James K. Polk, Uncle Sam, and the once-proud US dollar. In short, do it for yourselves.
Happy Thanksgiving, America.
The thing is, I watch a lot of CNN International over here. Not because I care that much about the news, but because it's one of only three English language channels we get, the other two being some sort of weird ESPN that only has soccer and HBO Asia, which isn't worth watching because they only show really, really bad US movies, like The Bradys Go to Washington (what, you didn't see that in the theaters?) and pretty much anything by Vin Diesel. (Remember Knockaround Guys and Man on Fire? Yeah, me neither.)
So anyway, my point is that we basically only watch CNN. And what do they talk about twenty-four hours a day on CNN these days? Once an hour on the hour, or the hour plus five minutes or so? The decline and fall of the once mighty US Dollar, that's what. Or, as they put it, the "weak dollar." Seriously, for the last few weeks, every hour of CNN International programming has devoted ten to fifteen minutes on the weak dollar and what it means for both America and the rest of the world. As you might imagine, this is driving me totally and completely insane. Really, it is. And since I have, for now, little to no desire to go insane--unless I'm also really rich, so I can be "charmingly eccentric"--we have to band together to do something about this. (We meaning you, in this case.)
Now I have very little understanding of what makes the dollar weak, since I never took an Econ class in my life and Microsoft Money doesn't have a "weak dollar" button anywhere. However, since I am sure it cannot in anyway be due to the sound "don't tax (at all) and spend (billions and billions and billions)" fiscal policy of our Commander-in-Chief--otherwise we wouldn’t have reelected him, right?--it must be due to something else. What that something else is, I have no idea--see the beginning of this paragraph--but I do know one thing: taking two days off for Thanksgiving cannot help the US economy. So we--we again meaning you--need to give up Thanksgiving.
Yes, that's right. I'm asking you to give up Thanksgiving, two days where everyone spends a lot of money but no one, apart from thousands of grateful turkey farmers, makes any. This includes, most likely, the company you work for, who has to pay you for two entire days of zero productivity, which simply cannot be good for the bottom line. (I guess the people who put cranberries in a can also make money, since I’m guessing there's no other day of the year people buy that crap.)
Okay, that's a bit of a lie. I guess that retail stores rake in a fair amount of your not-hard-earned-because-I-have-two-days-off money on this coming Friday, since that's the day everyone will officially start their Christmas shopping. Don’t worry, those early birds among you can still do that. But you should do it a little differently this year. Instead of buying presents for your family, loved ones, dogs, cats, invisible friends, or whatever--presents that were probably made in some other country (like here) and therefore contribute to our trade deficit--you should only buy presents for me. Yes, that's right. Me.
Why? Because you'll be sending them out of the country to me--that is, exporting them. Trust me, it just makes sense. Think about it: you always here about how the US has a trade imbalance, importing billions and billions and billions of dollars worth of goods, but only exporting billions and billions to other countries. This is your chance to do something about it, to help America break even in the trade game and--in the process--possibly help give us all the strong dollar, or at least a middling one that won't get beat up by the hard-drinking British pound after a long afternoon of watching football at the pub, one that won't get sand kicked in its face by the effeminate, color-coordinated Euro when it goes to the beach. Needless to say, the more expensive the gift is--we have billions of dollars (albeit weak ones) to make up--the better, so don't skimp on my gifts. I am not exaggerating in any way when I say the very future of the country depends on this.
But don't just do it for me, although that would be nice of you. No, do it for the U-S-of-A; Old Glory; the red, the white, and the blue. Do it for George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, our underrated eleventh president James K. Polk, Uncle Sam, and the once-proud US dollar. In short, do it for yourselves.
Happy Thanksgiving, America.
