Notwithstanding, or rather especially because of, the White House spinmeisters’ painting a much rosier scenario than warranted by economic reality, just to sell the narrative for Obama’s re-election bid to a gullible public, I deem it most appropriate to highlight the poem on the Flirting book’s page 171 as the website’s new featured page.
The piece itself was originally written in the workplace, when inflation was barely half what it is now. The national debt was about $771.54 billion. Compared to today’s humongous $15.3 trillion and counting, those were the proverbial “halcyon days of yore.”
Those were the glory days of the Carter Administration when national malaise and stagflation were dominant components of the national lexicon. Compared to the contempt with which the Obama regime is lambasting the American public and dividing and fragmenting the national consciousness, it is very tempting to embrace Jimmy Carter as a pampering benevolent father figure.
For those of you who are less inclined to click on any hyperlinks, the poem is reproduced in full below. Enjoy the ride, the rest of the week, especially the GOP Primaries festival of trivia, banalities and insufferable irrelevance.
A W O R K E R 'S L A M E N T
(Typesetting at 4th Quarter Lobster Shift!)
Last page is done, so is the day
And one by one, we take our way
The time we spent pasting those pages
Gladly we sent to distant ages.
What words to speak, what verse is there to write?
What device can make reason usher in some respite?
Give me words of wisdom to save the common sense
From such taste of boredom akin to violence!
Oh, these newspapers, Why! they're such a crowd
And their publishers all seem so pleased and proud
With odds and ends to drown the bliss of ignorance
Prose and verse to crown the Glory of Irrelevance.
One might argue: Why get so annoyed?
Tough work to pursue, tougher still unemployed
What with inflation going up by the hour
'Tis no simple mission to get worth for your dollar.
Well, then, it is obvious, there isn't any choice;
Methinks it takes genius, takes cunning otherwise;
Some take the drudgery, all day, nine to five,
Mischief and trickery, nay, sin to survive!
In comparison, the latest data I could glean on the size of the economy is the following:
ReplyDeleteThe Bureau of Economic Analysis posted third-quarter growth figures showing the economy grew at an annual rate of 2.5% through September -- raising the bar to $15.2 trillion. . . . the US remains the nation with the highest GDP in the world – and by far . . . almost as much as the economies of the next four (Japan, Germany, China, UK) combined.