economy

13 posts

Murdered Jobs on the Blue Ridge Parkway: The Shutdown in Microcosm

pisgah_innBruce O’Connell is an American job creator. All he does is grab his bootstraps, sit down at the table, and create jobs. That’s literally all he does! But thanks to the goose-stepping sturmtruppen of the National Park Service, Bruce O’Connell can’t create jobs no more.

See, Bruce O’Connell creates his jobs on federal land, by running a nearly century-old hotel on a lonely stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway. And since the National Park Service has been deemed non-essential, O’Connell’s hotel, the Pisgah Inn (the Peak of the Parkway!), is being forced to close. This is a pain in Bruce O’Connell’s big, swingin’ American dick, because the Blue Ridge Parkway offers some of the best leaf-peeping you’ll find south of the Mason-Dixon line, and seeing as it’s October, Bruce O’Connell was hoping to get PAID, cousin. Continue reading →

Public Assistance In 2011 Is Charles Dickens’ Worst Nightmare

When you first meet Janine, your overall impression is of softness – she speaks clearly in modulated Midwestern tones, her hair is a honey-colored cloud, and she has the kind of posture your Grandmother yelled at you for not having.  Her casual clothes are sweet and feminine.  Today she has on a denim skirt on which she hand-stitched a few tiny flowers, and a gauzy white eyelet blouse more befitting a high school sophomore than the 43 year old medical secretary she once was.  And she’ll talk about that to me today, while she tells me all about what it’s like to be on public assistance for the first time in her life.

There’s the shame, of course, and we’ll get to that.  But first, more about Janine. She moved to New York to follow a man.  He was a contractor redesigning the billing system in the Midwestern hospital where Janine worked, and by their third date she was smitten. Continue reading →

Friday Morning Headlines

So The Markets are freaking out again. I feel like Markets should be capitalized because “the markets” has become this phrase you hear all the time now, some presumed entity with a will of its own. News anchors will say things like “let’s see what the markets are doing,” or “the markets are not responding well to this news,” like they’re talking about some unruly sentient being, a deranged stallion to which all our fates are tied.

  • Homeland Security has announced a new deportation policy that will allow many illegal immigrants to stay in the US.
  • An Egyptian border guard has been killed in an Israeli raid on militants.
  • HP will no longer be making PCs and shitty laptops.
  • British Council offices have been bombed in the Afghan capital.

Wednesday Morning Headlines

President Barack Obama concluded his three-day bus tour yesterday and give this interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN.  The set is supposed to be some kind of machine shop with an American flag on the wall. Also, when the camera is on Obama there are various tools and pieces of equipment associated with general manufacturing and industrial jobs. They really are trying to convince us that Obama is very serious about jobs. Look he even did an interview in a machine shop!

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Monday Morning Headlines

Those riots in London are still being milked for front page stuff today, according to the BBC. What were they even rioting about? Okay, it seems as though the police have killed someone and a protest over said death got out of hand, that’s why. But I also  think that rioting has become sort of mainstream, it’s kind of just acceptable to riot sometimes now. Everyone’s doing it! It’s an internet sensation like planking except it has horrendously destructive and violent consequences in real life, which is pretty uncool so if you’re going to go crazy and burn something let it be the sweet Mary Jane brothers and sisters, amen. Gather round and get your headlines inside.  Continue reading →