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"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
September 26, 2008
A Question About History
How have things turned out before when the President, Treasury Secretary, Federal Reserve Chairman, and a leading presidential contender all scream in public constantly about how we're on the verge of a giant financial meltdown? Really well, right?
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at September 26, 2008 11:42 AMThese guys figure they have long since lost all credibility and if they say we're on the verge of a meltdown, it will actually inspire confidence in the economy. Pretty smart, huh?
Posted by: cemmcs at September 26, 2008 12:02 PMMission accomplished, baby!
JP "morgue-in" just bought WAMU for roughly 350,000 per branch, plus all deposits and other tangibles. Not bad.
Wait till the vultures pick over the rest of the corpses soon to litter the American landscape.
David Oliver's joke the other night about American kids fighting over roadkill may be horribly prescient.
It'll be like Night of the Living Dead.
Mission accomplished, indeed.
Posted by: Oarwell at September 26, 2008 12:45 PMIt's a double-edged sword. If they say that we are on the verge on an economic meltdown, they undermine confidence in the financial system. If they say that everything is hanky-dory, and turn out to be wrong, they get blamed for lack of foresight (or, in this case, just plain sight).
That's more of a problem with the foundations of our financial sector: it's faith based, a giant placebo effect.
Posted by: Weasel Word at September 26, 2008 06:33 PM
"By the magnitude of her fury in the final hour
And when the sand was gone and the time arrived
In the naked dawn only a few survived
And in attempts to understand a thing so simple and so huge
Believed that they were meant to live after the deluge."
----Jackson Browne, "Before the Deluge"