Beauty is Imperfection

(Originally posted Thursday, September 18, 2008 )

John McCain Gives Voters Regular Updates on the Current Financial Crisis on Sept. 17, 2008

9:30 a.m. “Ladies and gentleman, I just want to let you know that as of this morning, I still believe the economy is fundamentally sound.”

10:30 a.m. “There is a great fear among the American people about the state of the markets, but the economy is redoubtable and will surely make a comeback, I believe.”

11:30 a.m. “The U.S. has been buffeted this week by severe shocks to the financial system, which is now crippled in its ability to execute trades and get deals done, but corporate earnings are still resilient. At least that’s what my advisers tell me. I’m not that good with the economy, as I’ve said before.”

12:30 p.m. “The U.S. economy is strong even though it has been harmed by the perception of the American people of poor corporate governance, rampant greed, the overheating of markets amid a torrid pace of deregulation, collateral meltdown and the inflated bidding of credit risk. But at the end of the day, that’s just a lot of big words.”

1:30 p.m. “The American economy is starting to smell like bad milk on a hot day, but Americans are a strong people and they will drink it. They will drink that sour milk. It will go down their awaiting gullets like manna from heaven and it will land in their stomachs and they will take it like men and Alaskan women.”

2:00 p.m. “I think we need a panel.”

2:30 p.m. “If you didn’t at least sometimes share with all your countrymen a bit of false confidence in the value of worthless paper, this whole capitalism thing wouldn’t work very well, would it? I ask you that!”

3:30 p.m. “We must stay on message: Republicans believe in free markets, laissez faire economic policy and tax cuts that pay for themselves. We know that when you look in our eyes, you can believe that, even though, OK, we cheated a little today and nationalized the 18th largest company in the world, which is the kind of move you’d probably expect from Daniel Ortega, Salvador Allende and Fidel Castro. We hope you, the taxpayer, enjoy the brand new insurance company you own–AIG–and we’ll be asking you to submit ideas for a new logo.”

4:30 p.m. “We are in an age of greed. It is rampant greed and corruption that has caused this mess–the unfettered ambition of people who are leveraged through their eyeballs and don’t know how to make one dollar unless they are borrowing fifty. And who gives them this money? Investment banks. Only now there are no more investment banks to lend anybody anything. So the system has fixed itself. Everything is working according to plan. Ahahahahahah!”

4:35 p.m. “My friends, what has happened is that scads of wealthy investors–the center of the American economy–have been betting for the last four years that you wouldn’t be able to pay for your new house, and for that they got paid 12 cents of every dollar of your mortgage. But then you really did it: You actually failed to pay for your new home. You weren’t really supposed to do that. We just wanted the 12 cents.”

5:00 p.m. “The Dow Jones index is down 450 points. It’s the god damn hedge funds who did this. They’re the scum of the Earth. Get them!”

5:30 p.m. “We must find the executives who did this and go to their houses with pitchforks and frog march them outside and make them walk naked down the street, throwing pieces of worthless triple-A rated bond paper at them dipped in kerosene and set aflame.”

5:35: p.m. “Panic! Panic!”

5:38 p.m. “Oh my God, I just drank somebody’s blood. What have I become?”

6:30 p.m. “Kill you rat men. Kill!”

7:00 p.m. “I paid for this message.”

7:30 p.m. “Look, my friends. Let’s just be honest: Republicans aren’t much for doing anything about the economy other than letting the fires run wild and burn your house down. You ought to know where my party stands on these issues by now and know that there’s nothing I can do about it, so I’d rather just shut my mouth and hint that you vote against me. Geddit?