What's funny?
Posted by Harvey Ostroff on Monday, March 16, 2009
In a depression such as this, laughter is hard to come by. There are a great many topics that are tabu while people are waiting for financial recovery or at the least, a few signs of stability. I hear no Geithner jokes or Bernanke jokes. Even Madoff, who 'made off' with so many people's life savings, has been mostly exempted from skewering by the comics.
Those of us who are all right for the time being, and I include myself on my teachers pension, are meeting at social gatherings and not talking about it. " I don't even look" "I hope by the time I really need it, it will be there." "It" being money enough to live on. We are certainly avoiding talking about those middle class fallen who have lost their homes and their savings. We do feel badly but ... what can we do about it? Obama says to spend. So does our Prime Minister. My question is where do we place our money? My wife and I have decided that in these lean times, we will support the Arts.In the past month, we've gone to the Ballet, the Symphony and several theatre events. We'll keep doing this because the money doesn't trickle down, it gushes into the pockets of the artists.
Here are some of the things that are so outrageous that we should be making jokes about them.
GM has come up with a great plan. They're going to raise the prices and lower the warranty.... I mean they're going to lower their prices and raise the warranty... I mean... doesn't it want to make you cry?
Why would anybody buy a GM or Chrysler car when the likelihood is that within a short period of time, the morally bankrupt companies will have gone the way of American Motors and Studebaker. Let the companies fall and hire the workers to repair the roads and bridges that are in such a shambles.
They blew it. The CEO's with their gigantic salaries and their bonuses and their private jets and their arrogant attitudes need to be fired. Nobody needs a gas guzzling SUV anymore and they were collectively too stupid to realize it. Fire their asses and repossess their assets.
And the Banks and Insurance giants, let's give them a hand-out . Government needs to let the bloated bankers fail and put the bail-out money directly into the hands of the needy. This is not rocket science. If the money is given to the banks, whose sole motivation is to earn a profit, it will never get to those who deserve a break. What is really funny, is AIG telling the world yesterday that they couldn't continue to hire the brightest and the best unless they give out $450,000,000 in bonuses. Bonuses? For whaaaat!!!! This is akin to a teacher telling her student. " You didn't study, you never did your homework, you're a disruptive influence in the classroom and in the school yard, so I've decided to give you straight "A"s. Keep it up."
These failures need to be turfed. They didn't cut it. Bonuses? Take those money craving executives out to the street and have them switch places with a homeless person for a few weeks so that they can realize what it is they have done to the majority of the population. After that, fire their asses! AIG wants to bring us all back to Marie Antoinette. " Let them eat cake!" How about letting them eat feces instead?
Okay, so this rant started out to be a review panning the satirical Bill Maher show I saw on Saturday night in Vancouver. It was, at best, a lazy performance, he didn't even deign to include a Canadian segment in his patter and abruptly left the stage after a one hour and fifteen minute show. When I was on the Atkins diet and slipped for a baked potato, I would say it wasn't worth the carbs after my weigh-in the following morning. Maher, king of the sardonic comics, wasn't worth the laughs, not even the chuckles or the chortles. Maybe a snicker or two at best. He should have received a government bail-out or an AIG bonus for that performance.
HO
Tags: " aig bonuses" laughter comics depression arts aig "chrysler bail-out" "gm bail-out" "support the arts" bernanke geithner obama ballet symphony
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