support america - buy more bullets & booze!
by Boris Glebov
Published: March 23, 2008
Do you like free money? I do!
That is why I am so excited about President Bush’s economic stimulus package. Six hundred crisp dollars that I can joyfully spend on stimulating someone else’s economy.
Wait, that money is meant to bail our economy out of recession, not someone else’s? True, but that is not what is going to happen.
Basically, there are two things that most people will do with their tax refund. The first is to pay off credit card debt or add to savings. The second is to go to Target, or Wal-Mart or K-Mart and buy themselves something nice.
The former option infuses money into our failing banking system, which is currently reeling from the sub-prime lending crisis and housing market crashes (Both of which, to a great extent, are the fault of banks themselves). An infusion of money to the banking industry will only serve to bail out our national money managers who out to be fired for mismanaging our money.
The latter option is even worse. Most things that we produce in this country at a competitive level - aircraft, ships, heavy machinery - are not meant for the everyday consumer. If you do go and buy yourself something nice, it is likely to be made some place else. Retail market competition is extremely tight, so profit margins are razor thin. The only money that remains on our shores will pay for bloated middle management and excessive senior executive bonuses - two more sectors of the economy that are to blame for the current recession.
Remember, fast economic growth is possible if you are operating on a great wealth gradient. If country A is wealthier than country B, it only makes sense for manufacturing jobs to flow from wealthier country to the poorer country. Even if country B pays its workers a decent wage by local standards (and it probably doesn’t, since said country probably does not have fair labor laws), its workforce is still cheaper. So it makes things that its wealthier neighbor buys. In this way, the poorer country slowly siphons wealth away from the wealthier country. The process continues until the rich neighbor is no longer so relatively rich.
So it follows that if the United States economy is headed into recession and its people start buying less stuff, the Chinese economy is in also trouble. As our economy weakens and theirs strengthens, the wealth gradient goes away. The unbelievable rate of economic growth the Chinese have enjoyed will fade. Unless, of course, someone gave Americans a bag of cash, and the only things they could afford were made in China. Economic stimulus package indeed! But the wrong economy!
This all got me thinking. Where could I spend my money so that it would actually help our own economy? Then it struck me. There are a couple things that I can afford and are still made in this country: booze and guns!
A quick search online reveals that my local grocery store sells Jack Daniel’s for $16 per bottle. Wal-Mart has shotguns for around $180, while ammobank.com has ammunition for about $14 a box. So here is my Stimulate America Shopping List: one 20-guage shotgun, ten boxes of ammunition, and seventeen bottles of cheap whiskey. Economy saved! As an added bonus, I will probably have some awesome stories and a fun criminal record.
God bless America, the economy and you, Mr. Bush!
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