Spring Break
There's a reason we called it the 'Great Depression'
Cody Bishop
Issue date: 10/8/08 Section: Opinion
Good news, everyone! You're lucky enough to live in a burgeoning Golden Age, the great resurgence of the American Dream, with all its long-vanished, gaudy promise! You too can hop on board at the ground level, the dawn of an American Super-Economic wave!
This isn't what you've been hearing, reading or seeing on television you tell me. It's true. The nattering naybobs of negativism (to quote a wise man) jumping the gun in the race toward complete dissolution of American morale bellow warnings about Great and Greater Depressions, citing rampant foreclosure, and heralding nothing short of total destruction of the American way of life.
These cynical elites from the liberal coasts--or the Nation's Parentheses--fail to grasp certain fundamentals of the American Dream; for those of us who still believe, the streets are again being paved with gold. As a true believer, I have the God's skinny on my side.
Mortgage crisis? The infallible, benevolent Invisible Hand of the Market has opened up the Dream of home ownership once again to a broad swath of Americans like you and me. Let me illustrate this point for the skeptics out there.
My day job at a semi-local, quasi-rural newspaper finds me working tirelessly on Real Estate advertisements--quietly slashing $25,000 from the list price of a foresty dream home or stamping a big red banner shouting a $50,000 plummet on the price of a spacious McMansion at top volume from the page.
The Invisible Hand of the Market, in all its righteousness, has provided for us devout and practicing Capitalists, rewarding us with entry-level pricing on crucial, fundamental components of the American Dream. You'll notice that I don't deny that the American economic system is in a time of upheaval. A crisis, sure, but as a devout study of Milton Friedman I prefer to liken it to cataclysm. It's with this understanding that we can see that this economic crisis is akin to the Biblical flood, creating a cleansed economy, where the AD thrives in the hearts of the believers.
For a pious Capitalist like myself these are hopeful days, lighted by the glory of the future. Some of those faithless will offer the best dismissive explanation, with a shrug, as "every cloud has a silver lining." Why so negative, sourpuss? Let the silver lining obscure the cloud!
This has already proven to be an opportunity for brave young entrepreneurs to create entirely new industries, emerging like saplings from the so-called "waste" of the looming recession.
I'm sure many of you are familiar with the "Foreclosure Tours," of last year, scheduled weekend bus trips through subdivisions and residential areas with a large bank-owned proportion. Now, according to the Modesto Bee, there is a company that will dye the dead lawns of abandoned foreclosures green--different shades representing different species of lawn, no less. For a nominal fee, the neighborhood is saved and primed for revitalization as the Invisible Hand of the Market. beams from on high.
So buck up, True Believers, the time for irrational faith is now! The American Dream has never been more available to more people; if you can convince yourself that this is true, then nobody can convince you otherwise.
Cody Bishop can be reached at cbishop@statehornet.com
This isn't what you've been hearing, reading or seeing on television you tell me. It's true. The nattering naybobs of negativism (to quote a wise man) jumping the gun in the race toward complete dissolution of American morale bellow warnings about Great and Greater Depressions, citing rampant foreclosure, and heralding nothing short of total destruction of the American way of life.
These cynical elites from the liberal coasts--or the Nation's Parentheses--fail to grasp certain fundamentals of the American Dream; for those of us who still believe, the streets are again being paved with gold. As a true believer, I have the God's skinny on my side.
Mortgage crisis? The infallible, benevolent Invisible Hand of the Market has opened up the Dream of home ownership once again to a broad swath of Americans like you and me. Let me illustrate this point for the skeptics out there.
My day job at a semi-local, quasi-rural newspaper finds me working tirelessly on Real Estate advertisements--quietly slashing $25,000 from the list price of a foresty dream home or stamping a big red banner shouting a $50,000 plummet on the price of a spacious McMansion at top volume from the page.
The Invisible Hand of the Market, in all its righteousness, has provided for us devout and practicing Capitalists, rewarding us with entry-level pricing on crucial, fundamental components of the American Dream. You'll notice that I don't deny that the American economic system is in a time of upheaval. A crisis, sure, but as a devout study of Milton Friedman I prefer to liken it to cataclysm. It's with this understanding that we can see that this economic crisis is akin to the Biblical flood, creating a cleansed economy, where the AD thrives in the hearts of the believers.
For a pious Capitalist like myself these are hopeful days, lighted by the glory of the future. Some of those faithless will offer the best dismissive explanation, with a shrug, as "every cloud has a silver lining." Why so negative, sourpuss? Let the silver lining obscure the cloud!
This has already proven to be an opportunity for brave young entrepreneurs to create entirely new industries, emerging like saplings from the so-called "waste" of the looming recession.
I'm sure many of you are familiar with the "Foreclosure Tours," of last year, scheduled weekend bus trips through subdivisions and residential areas with a large bank-owned proportion. Now, according to the Modesto Bee, there is a company that will dye the dead lawns of abandoned foreclosures green--different shades representing different species of lawn, no less. For a nominal fee, the neighborhood is saved and primed for revitalization as the Invisible Hand of the Market. beams from on high.
So buck up, True Believers, the time for irrational faith is now! The American Dream has never been more available to more people; if you can convince yourself that this is true, then nobody can convince you otherwise.
Cody Bishop can be reached at cbishop@statehornet.com
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