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How Can We Be In A Recession If We’ve Got So Much Money?

Change. Hope. A sassy, no-nonsense demeanor that gets the job done. All qualities exhibited by Tony Danza on Who’s The Boss. And, somewhat less importantly, by our President elect, Barack Obama.

What’s that crazy Italian up to now? Why, Mr. Obama is planning a massive economic stimulus package, the largest amount of money spent on the American infrastructure since Eisenhower bought the U.S. highway system from the French (known at the time as “Ike’s folly”).

As someone who plans to live well into his forties, I’m a huge proponent of using green technologies as a way to put Americans to work. Just seems like good sense, as long as the Russians appear bent on keeping our nuclear weapons manufacturing sector limp and lifeless.

But I’ve got to say I’m baffled by the amount of money being discussed here. While Barack hasn’t come up with an official number, Congress has estimated the package will be around 600 billion dollars. That’s a lot of Jack In The Box tacos, my friends. About 1.2 trillion, by my count. Which, coincidentally, is how large the national deficit is (in money, not tacos).

But Obama is unfazed. Just like the nation seemed relatively unfazed when we spent a similar amount on bailing out Wall Street. Just like people are now talking about bailing out the auto makers. Which brings me to my question:

When did money become imaginary?

I know we’ve been headed this way ever since we went off the gold standard, but I seem to have missed the actual point at which the number of zeros on a check lost all real world significance.

I think it has something to do with “borrowing from the future,” which, if true, sounds like a great idea to me. After all, I’m not in the future, and don’t plan to ever be, barring a major breakthrough with my LSD-powered time-mo-gig (patent pending).

So, Mr. Obama (I feel I can safely assume you’re reading this, since your last Youtube address was stolen verbatim from my article on Lindsay Lohan’s gooch and funbags), I’d like to use my superior brain to point out some things we ought to be buying with our imaginary money.

  • More Spaceships: For decades, NASA has plodded along at a snail’s pace thanks to the exorbitant cost of science molecules. Let’s give them the 90 hojillion dollar shot in the arm they need to get us out there colonizing planets and enslaving alien peoples. After all, when this “save the Earth” thing goes down in flames, we’re going to need a nice terraformed place to put our stuff and/or selves.
  • Food For Everyone: While we’re at it, let’s get this “starving people” thing out of the way. Frankly, it’s an embarrassment that we could clear up with a well-placed order of 6 maximillian dollars’ worth of Costco pre-packaged microwaveable meals.
  • Houses: Whether you blame Clinton, Bush, or poor people, we all agree that the housing market is on the fritz. Nothing a 16 brazilian dollar stimulus package can’t fix. Plus we get to say “stimulus package” on the news more, which I find hilarious.
  • Guitars That Are Able To Be Played In Space: This primarily regards my previous suggestion about aggressively colonizing our solar system. We’re going to need some music out there in The Black, so I think it’s high time we invested, say, 1.4 nathanfillion dollars on space guitar technology. I know some of you might be thinking, “but Michael, don’t normal electric guitars already work in space?” And to you I say “do we really want to take that chance?” Besides, if it turns out I’m wrong—highly unlikely—we can invest the money in making the guitars more space-friendly…put some star stickers on there, maybe some glow in the dark stuff. I think you know what I’m talking about.
  • Battle Bots: No, not the TV show; that’s stupid. I’m talking about actual robot soldiers. We’re the most highly evolved species on the planet, it’s about time we stopped driving hunks of metal into each other at high velocities. It’s just rude. A small seed investment of 6 megecredits (or even 5.8) would go a long way towards developing battlebot technology. And just think of the televised entertainment revenue! Which reminds me–
  • The Show Battle Bots: Come to think of it, it was a pretty decent show. Outlaw that wedge bullshit and we’ve got a viable franchise.
  • If you’d like to order something with our vast build-up of imaginary funds, feel free to post a note to President elect Obama in the comments, which he reads religiously. But please note, these are not imaginary items, just items of possibly infinite cost.

    The man’s not a genie for God’s sake.


    When not solving world financial crises, Michael serves as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets!

    Last 5 posts by Michael Swaim

    This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Barack Obama, Firefly, NASA, Space Exploration, The Economy, The Recession. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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    46 Responses to “How Can We Be In A Recession If We’ve Got So Much Money?”

    1. ADHD Says:

      Xanadu, that’s not imaginary, it’s just reaaaaaaally stupid.

    2. Hunter Says:

      Great, thank for sharing your post, I learned alot from it.

    3. Xanadu Says:

      I want a dick made of lasers! Also some laser proof vaginas.. also another laser dick. And if you say that’s imaginary you’re unamerican.

    4. Eaver Says:

      Is there a reason the fly in Firefly keeps being capitalized?

      Anyway, yes, that nathanfillion dollars joke was a pleasant and entirely unexpected joke that I will have to introduce into everyday conversation from this point on.

    5. macsnafu Says:

      Hey, great idea! Why not just print up enough money to give everyone a million dollars or so, and then nobody will have to work!

      ;-)

    6. Jay Says:

      FireFly rocks, no one really knows what the fuck I’m talking about it when I’m bringing it up… which brings me to the realization that maybe I should stop bringing it up. God damn you FOX!

      Barbama should probably invest about 5 Stupillion dollars into either:
      A) The reproduction of Cracked Magazine, and the complete downfall of MAD Magazine… because it sucks, and doesn’t have nearly as many dick jokes as Cracked.
      or
      B) Bribing FOX to re-release the FireFly series… but act like the events of the movie Serenity never happened because the assholes killed off some key characters.

    7. Sertith Says:

      “We’re going to need some music out there in The Black, so I think it’s high time we invested, say, 1.4 nathanfillion dollars on space guitar technology.”

      Nothing better than a fellow FireFly fan! *cheers*

      I’m all for all of these “stimuli” ideas.

    8. deity Says:

      lets hre aliens to kill off all humans and destroy all modern tech.
      solves all the budget and environmental problems in one swipe.

      yes the idea was stolen from the recent movie, but its good.

    9. trance.stimuli Says:

      Oh my god that last pic of Obama as the genie is priceless!!

      But to get to the magical money thing- its basically because the Fed is a private company with a monopoly to create fiat money, which is just money because the government says it is. I just took my economics final Friday so I’ve spent the last 3 months learning about this shit.

      You’re totally right (as always swaim) about the gold standard.

    10. Gr3m1in Says:

      Tits budget is a good idea. Think about it, think…
      no more (.)(.) just ( . )( . ) a sound investment for your countries future.

    11. Gr3m1in Says:

      With all this talk of robot soldiers, and robot animals you’ll also need to invest some Zarking moola in a Blade Runner training program.

    12. glendoor42 he knows when your awake Says:

      Or you could go spend 8.00 bucks for a pack of Depends for Grandpa. Would be much cheaper.

    13. Tissue Says:

      Can you also invest in robot animals, I hate mine and he pisses me off, they will also have some military use of course. i say invest 60 gujralfgarlillimilliion double dollars into that project. Who knows, we can have robot dogs take care of our old people, cause my grandpa poops his pants.

    14. Tissue Says:

      Mister Obama, please invent a tournament for giant robots to fight, I;m thinkinking bloodpsort, with giant robots. This will circumvent the necessity for war and it’d make awesome ratings man! Seriously dawg, homie manbrodude, thank about it!

    15. TJF588 Says:

      Mr. Obamanator (”-natar”?), could you perhaps kick-start the lift-New-Orleans-up-with-airships-then-fill-the hole-with-enough-dirt-so-it’s-level-with-the-rest-of-civilization plan? Heck, you could even go above and byond and make NO above and beyond — I’m talkin’ ’bout Space Mountain, with Nahlins as the first Space Dome city (think of the cah-razy hotels; vacation industry gold– no, platinum-mine). Or, y’know, maybe make it an island in a giant water bowl; imagine a giant Sea World, perhaps add a Venice-ian affair with intercity water-street transport. Dolphins are “cars” (or those Frenchy loveboats), orcas are the buses.

    16. glendoor42 Says:

      Not tits budget but its budget. OOPS!!!

    17. glendoor42 Says:

      Guest_Name, that comment is filled with brillant suggestions.

      We did have a super collider project in the United States but congress killed it when it cut tits budget.

      As for fruit that tases like cheeseburgers, I hate fruit, but if it tatsted like a cheeseburger I would eat it.

    18. Guest_Name Says:

      I think we should invest somewhere in the neighborhood of 12.2 Kasquillion dollars to educate people as to why the LHC is fucking awesome.

      Also, why the hell can’t we make fruit that tastes like cheeseburgers yet? The nutritional content of an apple combined with the sweet flavor of broiled cow? COME ON!

    19. john b Says:

      we should invest $50 katrillion dollars in penis enlargement drugs that actually work. The world is in crisis, people, our average penis size is below 20 inches. This needs to change!
      Also rent out prostitutes to every virgin in the whole world. That needs fixing too. I’d estimate about a trillion billion thousand thousand dollars.

    20. Catch Says:

      I think we should spend 10 billion dollars on a 17-mile (27-kilometer) underground ring of supercooled pipes, through which we could send two streams of protons in opposite directions, at roughly 99.999999% the speed of light, and see what happens when the two waves/beams of protons slam into each other,

    21. Alitubeamp Says:

      Does that mean all the loose change I’ve ben putting in a 10 gallon “spring” water container is actually worth less than the “spring” water that was in it?

      Maybe I should have saved the water and spent the change.

    22. kingmonkey, stronger than 11 men... 11 very weak men Says:

      While we’re on the topic of investing ludicrous amounts of money, can I suggest a study– a scientific molecular study? I need to understand the principles behind queues (standing in lines). Why the fuck are there only 3 tellers on duty at lunchtime, in a downtown bank, when everyone needs to do banking on their lunch break? If banks can’t figure out simple things like “when people come in”, then how can they be expected to understand the more complicated issues of financing space-guitars?

      To quote the band Prizm, from the song Space Ship Superstar:
      “I’m a space ship superstar,
      I’ve got a solar-powered laser beam guitar.”

      Doesn’t that sound awesome?

    23. free my willy Says:

      why cant i post about mother-daughter sex?

    24. Metalbrainsurgery Says:

      A normal guitar would indeed not work in space. Well it would work, but it would produce no sound.
      I think we need about 20 quintillion dollars in order to start mining rescourses on the moon. Or even better start a moon country, then take over a small country (im looking at you lichtenstine) and thus begin the lunar empire.

      Also, we need to do experamints on what happens when you get drunk in space. I must know.

    25. lordastral Says:

      # dan Says:
      December 10th, 2008 at 7:48 pm

      Swaim is kinda like Sex With An Impotent Male
      ——–

      Well, Dan, I am sure you would know all about that

    26. Awesome Sauce Says:

      I’d like Mr. Obama and Science to order me up some animals in different colors. We have phones that are magical movie-showing tablets, and I can’t have a f*cking purple dog?

    27. CamboD Says:

      I had about 4 squakillion nerdgasms at the mention of Nathan Fillion.

    28. glendoor42 Says:

      What are your talking about Michael ? Big
      Red gum?

    29. Michael Swaim Says:

      The pleasure lasts that much longer, baby.

    30. dan Says:

      Swaim is kinda like Sex With An Impotent Male

    31. a monkey Says:

      I think that if we use South Park’s idea of Internet Money, this would also come in handy

    32. Jonathan Says:

      That’s why I’m converting all my dollars into Micronesian stone money. No way that will ever become imaginary!

    33. glendoor42 Says:

      Ike’s Folly, pretty funny.

      But on a more serious note, exactly how much is the national debt
      in tacos? I must know, live are depending on it. Dammit Swain , hurry!

    34. free my willy Says:

      sheesh where did my earlier comment go?

    35. free my willy Says:

      ???

    36. Iswearingpants Says:

      how many zeros does nathanfillion have?

    37. topramen Says:

      You seem to have done a pretty good job summing up obama’s campaign promises.

    38. greengoddess Says:

      I’ve been wondering the same things lately…

    39. Gamble Says:

      Fund my mutant army. Come on, we can host mutant vs robot matches.

    40. Gatt Says:

      While we’re at it, let’s just go ahead and start cutting some Quan. It worked for Cuba Gooding Jr.

      About 37 Swaimillion should fix everything.

    41. Ein Dose Says:

      Swaim, I have good news and bad news.

      The bad news, the Brazilians are in fact still on Earth, so the global economic crisis still affects them. Unfortunately, 16 Brazilian dollars won’t cover the debt.

      Good news, however, they are in fact planning to bring back Battle Bots. And if I read correctly, they ARE outlawing the wedge.

    42. Nobody Says:

      Lmao nathanfillion dollars. And if injecting money into the economy works, why doesn’t the government throw 5billion billion dollars at it?
      Curse you retarded government!!

    43. Opunaya Says:

      That Wedge is a total dick. And Obama is a freakin’ Genie. He can do anything as long as he says “hope” and “change”…kind of like how the Superfriends could do anything against the laws of physics by saying “science” and “molecules”.

    44. alivche Says:

      Did you ever posted your profile on a celebrity and millionaire dating

      site called—– U k w e a l t h y m e n.com— —–I saw your

      profile there few weeks
      ago. &&&&

    45. Itrade Says:

      He should buy every other country in the world so we can all live in peace and harmony or, barring that, civil war.

    46. Nails_Magnum Says:

      Look at that son of a bitch sitting there in that picture acting like he’s better than me because he’s been on TV. Fuck you, Wedge, indeed.

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