So California is what, $35 billion in the red? And the Prez just
asked Congress for another $25 billion to cover unexpected
incidental expenses for the bottomless pit that is Iraq. And the
GAO says that the administration under-reported the cost of the
health-care reform bill by oh, somewhere around $110 billion, or
maybe $125 billion, but right in that range. That
’s not the cost of the program, that’s just the amount they
forgot to mention when Congress was voting on it.
So California is what, $35 billion in the red? And the Prez just asked Congress for another $25 billion to cover unexpected incidental expenses for the bottomless pit that is Iraq. And the GAO says that the administration under-reported the cost of the health-care reform bill by oh, somewhere around $110 billion, or maybe $125 billion, but right in that range. That’s not the cost of the program, that’s just the amount they forgot to mention when Congress was voting on it.
It’s getting so we hear seriously big numbers being tossed around by everybody all the time. Whatever happened to things in the millions of dollars? Now everything is in billions, including soon no doubt, baseball players‚ salaries. I mean, you know that’s where it’s going – “The New York Yankees announced today that they have inked a 7-year deal with Matt Snurd, a utility outfielder with a .240 batting average and a history of injuries, that will pay him $1.4 billion not counting incentive bonuses. Ticket prices will rise to $340 for the worst seats; team owner George Steinbrenner says, whaddaya gonna do – I wanna win.”
I think it’s obvious what the problem is: our money has gotten too small. Somehow when we weren’t looking because we were trapped in our HMO’s automated phone system pressing 1’s and 3’s until our fingerprints disappeared, the American dollar turned into the yen. Now a buck means nothing – it won’t even buy one of those microscopic Starbuck’s espressos; you know, the one that’s not really a drink, it’s more like a stain on the bottom of the cup. It’s embarrassing. I mean, what does it tell you when the British come to America for a cheap vacation? Fly into JFK, convert your pounds into dollars, and the English postal worker who can barely get by at home is suddenly a rich tourist. Something is bad wrong here.
We should be outraged that our denominations of money have shrunk so much. After all, they’re backed by the full faith and credit and mind-boggling debt of the United States of America. But these days our rock-solid soothing green legal tender seems to have become the monetary equivalent of Kleenex in an allergy clinic. We need action before the dollar becomes so small that Washington’s name has to be abbreviated.
I propose we supersize: Scrap what we have and start over with better numbers. Hey, the European Union managed to invent an entirely new currency system based on a unit called the Euro; if they can do it, why not us? I say we introduce a new American monetary unit – call it the Macho. If we’re going to be dominating the world we should have in-your-face money to go with it. What we really need is a conversion rate that makes some of these horse-choking debts less depressing, like for example making California’s budget deficit around $1.43 and letting the total tag for Iraq still get us change back from a $20.
Now you and I know that with the single exception of the scoring system in international figure skating there is nothing in the world more arcane and complex than monetary policy, and I have faith that if we put a crack team of economic obfuscators on it they’ll find a way to spare us the indignity of watching working-class British tourists shopping on Rodeo Drive while we’re having to patronize discount Canadian drugstores just to keep ourselves in Viagra.
The fundamental question, however, remains: How in hell did it get like this?’
Robert Mitchell is a Morgan Hill attorney.
