One Brick Short

In an effort to appear as they though actually understand the swirling nature of the American economy as it heads in a downward spiral toward the large trap and the long tubes, economists are pulling out the 3-year-old’s refrigerator magnets and making like the Jackson 5.

They’ve got some choices. There’s the “U” economic downtown that will be a stretched-out slump with a sharp upturn. There’s the chance of a “V”, a quick fall followed by a fast rise in economic fortunes. There’s the “W”-shaped drop and up followed by another fall and rise and also the fear of the “L”, a long-term languishing.

This makes sense. Rather than describing the economic conditions with loaded terms such as “recession,“ “depression,“ or “bankrupting reign of Satan,“ we can use bizarre combinations of letters, symbols and numbers. That way our economy looks scientific, like Einstein’s E=mc2 that describes the light that trickles in through he dirty skylights in cavernous industrial complexes long devoid of any manufacturing activity being as the work and the jobs were years ago shipped to Miramax or some other far-away country.

So, if we describe our economy as downtown with a stretched-out slump with a sharp upturn (U) and consider the recession (R) prolonged (P), we can describe our economy as an URP. A double-drop and rise (W) in which most people see nothing but overwhelming (O) low employment (E) would be WOE. A quick fall with a fast rise followed by two quick drops and rises would be VW, a prolonged languishing (L) with extended overwhelming prolonged low employment and depression would be LOOPED.

Taking it all in, and using the full breadth and width of my liberal arts education from two public institutions (one community college, one Big Ten, back when they could count to 10 and not end up with 11 or 12) back in the late-70s and early-80s, I think I can adequately describe our economy.

In the past two years we’ve seen Shortages (S), decreasing career opportunities (C), a recession (R), low employment (E) with a double rise-and-fall spike (W) resulting in even lower employment (E) and the resulting depression (D) means we are, basically, economically SCREWED.