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Jewish World Review Jan. 5, 2001 / 10 Teves, 5761
James Lileks
1. Alan Greenspan went insane a year or so ago, and has become
determined to wreck the economy so people can't afford those mind-reading
dishes that EVERYONE is putting on the side of their houses.
2. Bush, Cheney et. al. are "talking down the economy." What mighty
power these men have! Merely by suggesting that we might be heading into a
recession, markets crash, fortunes evaporate, wise men scramble to stuff the
mattress with money. Odd, this newfound power; since the media has insisted
that Bush is about as sharp as a cube of wet cork, pundits must be stunned
that investors world-wide heed his words. Be grateful that he didn't use
his awesome Recession-Summoning Voice at the height of the Clinton Boom; he
would have brought the entire world economy crashing around our ears.
3. The Internet stocks are starting to alarm investors. Look at the
stats: The number of profitable internet companies has dropped from two out
of 194,923 to one out of 194,923. That's a fifty-percent decline!
A short history: The internet supposedly "changed everything." It made
for "frictionless" commerce where "B2C" companies lost huge amounts of
"money" providing services that no "sensible" person wanted. For example:
three dorks in San Francisco would dress in black, put on Matrix-style
sunglasses and adopt razor-thin beards, thereby transforming themselves from
undesirable "dorks" to hot, hip "geeks." This enabled them to extract $500
million from venture capitalists for their brilliant idea:
BigHeavyBankVault.com - a vendor of bank vaults over the internet. The
trick? Free overnight shipping! The problem: small market. Bigger problem:
if anyone actually bought anything, it would bankrupt the company.
But no matter: the geeks set up an office, rented all of Cape Canaveral
for a "launch" party (over $357 million alone was spent renting the shuttle
to send people up to Mir so they could photocopy their butts IN SPACE!) and
sat back to roll in the money. The stock's P/E ratio was longer than pi
carried out to the penultimate digit, but no matter. They owned the
selling-bank-vaults-online market. The convenience store in their office
lobby had more money in the take-a-penny-leave-a-penny dish - but hey,
that's short-term thinking.
Then the crash: last spring the NASDAQ began to soften. Stupid ideas
such as "Deadpetburial.com" (mail us your dead pet - we'll handle the
funeral!) began to bring down good, solid firms such as
"Deadpetcremation.com." This caused a slowdown in companies that provided
the technological necessities of the Internet (i.e., makers of really
cool-looking chairs, wrap-around sunglasses, and oh yeah, smoothie machine!
Gotta have a smoothie machine in the lobby, totally.) Everyone realized
that the Internet economy means "a lot of offices with young people talking
on the phone with serious expressions, producing nothing." It's dead in the
water. And it's behind rent on the boat.
The delicious irony, of course, is that this slowdown blotches the
biggest gem in Clinton's crown: His Fabulous Economy. But it wasn't his in
the first place - credit Reagan's tax cuts and Greenspan's stewardship for
this long long boom. Clinton knows history won't give him credit. But he
does care that people in his lifetime revere him as some sort of Super Elvis
who can move economies and spread peace just by grinning and moving his
hands.
Of course, there's one more possible cause for the recession: Political
Upheaval. The markets were unnerved by all that political strife. The
economy would still be roaring along if Bush had just simply conceded every
time he won a Florida vote or a court ruling. So: in the interests of
avoiding the Dreaded Recession, we can expect everyone to get along
smoothly, and assure the people that our leaders are united as one,
dedicated to putting partisan matters behind them.
So Ashcroft's a shoo-in for AG, right?
Of course. And you can buy the Brooklyn Bridge online at
bigheavybankvault.com,
12/23/00: Memo to Dubya: Wanna show who is boss? Nuke 'em!
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