Has anyone seen the money? At this point second-hand
information, even the rankest of hearsay will do, so if you have a
friend or perhaps a friend of a friend who has seen the money
please share the story; it will make a lot of people happy just to
know that somebody has seen the money.
Has anyone seen the money? At this point second-hand information, even the rankest of hearsay will do, so if you have a friend or perhaps a friend of a friend who has seen the money please share the story; it will make a lot of people happy just to know that somebody has seen the money.
I mean, I keep telling myself that I don’t live in Haiti, I don’t drive a Toyota, and my name isn’t John Edwards so how bad could it be? Still, there’s a whole lotta depression hanging over the landscape like gloomy ground fog populated with folks wandering around looking for the money that will bring the sunshine back.
Every now and then we hear somebody cry out that they think they’ve found the money. “Hey, there are jobs over here” or “Hey, the banks are lending again” or “Hey, the stock market is back” and everybody gets all optimistic for a few minutes, but then somebody else yells, “No, false alarm, just a fluke, joblessness is still rising, the banks are still hoarding, the market is afraid of its own shadow and could tank again any minute” and the fog settles back in.
Now the dismal soothsayers are telling us that several countries in Europe are going to go broke, however a whole country does that, and that we’ll be dragged back into the morass by failing economies across the Atlantic.
Talk about a global village; who knew our financial peace of mind would be tied to fervently hoping that Portugal can keep making its mortgage payment?
And a new batch of Cassandra’s is predicting that China, which has up until now been the leading candidate for where the money is, can’t keep growing at the breakneck pace it has evidenced for the past few years and will soon topple over from the weight of its over-ambitious expansion. How cheery; all those cool buildings from the last Olympics may have doomed the world’s economy.
And to top it all off, the Administration has canceled NASA’s program to go back to the moon, where many people thought there might be some jobs, a socially-conscious bank or even, just possibly, the money. I mean, it’s gotta be somewhere.
So what in the world can we do to help ourselves, to, as would no doubt if given a lectern and a big enough check be the words of our philosopher queen Sarah P, “put that good attitude out there, you betcha, so the people of this great country can have good things and like that, for sure”?
Well, there’s the Republican approach, which is basically to bayonet the wounded and rob the dead. Then there’s the Democratic approach, which is basically to hold even a rumor of a bright idea hostage until erstwhile supporters are adequately bribed.
Let’s see, there’s heavy sedation – Prozac in the water supply, Cheerios enriched with Zoloft: America, the Permanently Mellow. Can’t find the money, stopped looking for the money, who needs money, it’s all good.
Or how about tax-deductible group sing-alongs? Two hundred million people in unison raising their voices to the heavens in a rousing chorus of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” should certainly chase away the clouds.
Or, if all else fails, and I say this as a true-blue American born and bred with a fundamental sense of entitlement to The Good Life, we could hunker down, reduce our expectations to a few degrees above Absolute Zero, accept that the American Dream has turned into one of those nightmares you have when you’re running a high fever, and wait for the various financially-damaged parts of the globe to heal.
The happy delusion that the last two years will turn out to be just a brief blip on the radar screen before the good times come roaring back after a quick government fix is being swept away by the growing realization that we’re not in Kansas anymore.
On the other hand, if you, or a friend, or a friend of a friend, sees the money, please be sure to tell us all. I mean, it could happen; like, the whole world could win the lottery.
Call me an optimist.
Despite being an award-winning columnist, Robert Mitchell doggedly remains the same eccentric attorney who has practiced general law in Morgan Hill for more than 30 years. Reach him at r.****@*****on.net.
