So, I'm sitting at my desk, minding my own business, studying the op.ed. pages, when Jerry lumbers over and drops 'something he saved for me' from 'his' newspaper yesterday on top of what I was reading. This is how he crosses swords and I'm ready to rumble.
He taps the headline for emphasis, that states, 'With all due respect, Mr. President, you got it completely wrong!' What follows is a list of scientists who fervidly dispute the value of any initiatives President Obama has supported in addressing the global warming hot topic. Jerry 'likes' science, watches public television, reads National Geographic, and avidly reads science fiction, so he is prone to immersing himself in make believe worlds. "See, these are learned men and women of science who are saying that the panic merchants peddling the polar ice meltdown/second great flood scenario, on top of the ozone layer destruction DON'T have scientific facts to back it up and are only doing it to obtain research grant money from the Federal government!" Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
That's remotely possible, but not really conspiratorial in nature. I decide to give him a Pierce Brosnan squint and see if he labors on. He prattles on about hidden agendas, past weather cycles, wasting money, and BAM!, it hits me how to knock him off his puffin's perch, arrest his attention and de-Vulcanize him. "Jer, I think the
solution would be to bulldoze Detroit." Predictably, his eyes let me
know that his CPU would need a bit of time to prepare a response, so I thought I'd bite his ankles.
"Think of the beautiful irony in the message this sends out to the rest of the world. Mo-town rose to prominence on the back of the auto industry. Its heyday was really a remarkable time but complacency and mismanagement allowed pretenders to the throne to swarm the empire. Multi-national corporations took advantage of the weak U,S. Dollar and savvy foreign manufacturers came here and set up shop. Local economies welcomed the financial boon, better quality cars were turned out, and Detroit's self-denial cost it market share at the worst possible time.
"Okay. Make Detroit the 'epicenter' for green initiative education; you have plenty of cheap, available land that would lend itself to the intelligent design of the city's rebirth. We are trying to ween our country from its dependence on foreign oil; what a symbolic move it would be on our part to build upon the ashes of the gas guzzling economy of a foregone city to put people back to work and prove our resolve to the rest of the world as it waits for us to, once again, show the spirit that made us a great nation. Stop the Detroit auto bailout, right now, and put the money to better use."
We became distracted as phones rang and business needs arose. We weren't able to return to our discussion for the rest of the day, but I'm sure Jerry will bring his A-game to work tomorrow.
He's probably looking for quotable zingers, right now, somewhere in his revered Azimov collection. . . . . .
Contributed by TC- Futures Trader, Part-Time Economist, and Futurist
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