Auchtoon!Oh! So Now “Recession” Is a Big Deal?!!!…
Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, January 28, 2008
Mel Brooks famously said, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.” So paraphrasing, “Tragedy is when my state has a slow month. Comedy is when Michigan bleeds jobs out its rear end for years on end.”
Just last month, all of the Republican presidential candidates stopped by to patronize us with their one-state recession platitudes. “There, there you hopelessly backward state. This fixation with making things, automobiles and whatnot. It’s so 20th century. Come join the rest of the country selling subprime loans and building impossibly large homes in deserts. That’s where the money’s at!”
But now that the economy is apparently slowing down in other states, the race is on to cut interest rates and hand out free (re: the next generation’s) money. All those sensible suggestions of fiscal responsibility and wise investment for a better Michigan future? Bullcrap. What we need now is spending, spending, spending! We’ll consume our way out of this, by God!
Which isn’t to say I don’t want my government check. I’m just a little put out that they weren’t sending them to us Michigan folks sooner….
