National Economy Analysis

I went to the bank today. I wanted to see if I could buy a certificate of deposit for my $9.23, a certificate of deposit that paid at least 15%. I found out that the cheapest certificate of deposit still costs more than $9.23. This is really a shame because when we as a nation face economic hard times, I'm effected too, despite the fact that I wear a lot of old clothes and eat mostly microwave food.

Though I'm not an expert at the nation's economy, I'm nevertheless occasionally asked, "Jim, how did America get into this economic predicament? Was it the politicians or simply Wall Street greed?"

"It goes back further than that," I explain. "Truth is, it's the Irish. When the Irish came into this country, that's when the trouble started."

I know that a lot of people blame politicians. Others hold Al Qaeda responsible. And still others blame the Tea Party. And there are a lot of folks who point an accusing finger at gays, (both open and closet variety). But personally, I blame the Irish.

My sister came to visit me the other day and we talked about this very subject. [For the sake of this post I will now declare that] my sister is a sociologist. Not only is she a sociologist, she attended The Ohio State University. So you can bet that she knows stuff. She has mentioned the Indians as being responsible for the nation's economic troubles. The Indians have apparently benefited from American outsourcing. I'm not sure which tribe of Indians. My sister wasn't being specific about that. She once mentioned something negative concerning the Apache, but that might be due to the fact that she has seen a number of old, John Wayne westerns, and she was once in a minor auto accident involving a Jeep Apache. So though she is an expert, her view might be bias.

A female co-worker of mine blames blue collar workers, hardhat guys in particular, for the bad economy. See, she's a good-looking babe and when she walks by a construction site, she gets a lot of whistles and catcalls. With all the whistling and so forth, she wonders how any construction gets completed, let alone on time and budget. Just to be fair, I don't think she blames gay hardhat workers, although they may whistle at good-looking guys. I wouldn't know about that. I'm neither a gay hardhat worker, or a good-looking guy.

Call me an optimist, but I do think the economy is just beginning to get better. One way you can tell when things are getting better is by the age of the person who delivers the newspaper. If the delivery person is a kid, that means any adult that might potentially run the paper route has a real, full-time job. Another words, when it comes to a sound American economy, the younger the delivery boy, the better.

And yet another way to determine the strength of the national economy is to check how often the ice cream truck goes down your street on a summer day. If it goes by often, that's a bad sign. That means he is not being stopped for business, and consequently he makes a lot of passes down the street.

Some people try to determine the economic situation by watching business and stock market analysts on TV. But I wouldn't pay any attention to them and all their fancy charts and graphs. Truth is, most of those analysts are simply counting the number of times the ice cream truck goes by. Or they're waiting at the studio door to see how old the newspaper delivery person is. And as for the rest of the analysts, well, they're Irish.