Excelsior

Instead of titling this thread "American Economy", I figured I'd just title it the way I did..

I came across two interesting pieces of news, that I found quite hilarious. The first pokes fun at our "epic fail" government, and the state of the economy, and how it has only gotten worse..

This first piece is a letter from the CEO of an undisclosed company, who decided his next step was to lay off a certain number of employees to prevent falling flat.. here is a copy of said letter:

Dear <REMOVED> Employees:

As the CEO of this organization, I have resigned myself to the fact that Barrack Obama is our President and that our taxes and government fees will increase in a rather BIG way.

To compensate for these increases, our prices would have to increase by about 10%. But since we cannot increase our prices right now due to the dismal state of the economy, we will have to lay off sixty of our employees instead.

This has really been bothering me since I believe we are family here and I didn't know how to choose who would have to go.

So, after careful thought and deliberation, this is what I decided: I walked through our parking lots and found sixty 'Obama' bumper stickers on our employees' cars and have decided these folks will be the ones to let go. I can't think of a more fair way to approach this problem, despite the repercussions it could have. They voted for change...... I gave it to them.

In the meantime, keep up the teamwork, and I will see the rest of you at the annual company picnic.

Sincerely,
<REMOVED>
<REMOVED>

Despite the lawsuits this CEO could be facing, I applaud him for his courage and logic.

Here is another piece that had intention of poking fun at the American system, trying to show that Australia has everything the American government does not: intelligence and cojones.. I think our government could take a page out of Australia's book.

I'd upload the actual file, but its .wmv and this forum does not permit that file type.. so, without further ado:

This is the message that the Maroochydore High School, Queensland, staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering machine .

This is the actual answering machine message for the school.

This came about because they implemented a policy requiring students and parents to be responsible for their children's absences and missing homework.

The school and teachers are being sued by parents who want their children's failing grades changed to passing grades - even though those children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and did not complete enough school work to pass their classes.


The outgoing message:

Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school. In order to assist you in connecting to the right staff member, please listen to all the options before making a selection:

To lie about why your child is absent - Press 1

To make excuses for why your child did not do his homework - Press 2

To complain about what we do - Press 3

To swear at staff members - Press 4

To ask why you didn't get information that was already enclosed in your newsletter and
several flyers mailed to you - Press 5

If you want us to raise your child - Press 6

If you want to reach out and touch, slap, or hit someone - Press 7

To request another teacher, for the third time this year - Press 8

To complain about bus transportation - Press 9

To complain about school lunches - Press 0

If you realize this is the real world and your child must be accountable and responsible for his/her own behaviour, class work, homework and that it's not the teachers' fault for your child's lack of effort: Hang up and have a nice day!

If you want this in another language, move to a country that speaks it.

I think both articles are wonderful.. I suppose we all need a good laugh despite the gloom of this deteriorating economy..

hahahaha. i like the second one better. so true. it's kind of like people yelling at the president to create jobs, but don't raise taxes or make cuts anywhere else to help create the jobs. you know who i blame!!! the ferrets. they won't stop talking about chuck norris. jeesh. :Þ

Baaaad. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. Political topics will cause upheaval....and you're going to cause me to rant with this ill-conceived post. Blind ignorance annoys me more than anything else.

Way to jump on the bandwagon about Obama Orbit...I thought you were more intelligent than that. But then...America just loves to over-hype one news story and ignore every other. Bush ruined the economy, not Obama, and if people knew anything about how our government works they'd know that damage can be done in short order(Bush), but to get things changed/fixed takes a LOT longer(Obama), especially with all the special interest crap and lobbying going on. Congress is corrupt as hell, and I don't think anyone who has a strong opinion about our government or economy knows what the crap they're talking about....even me. No one can possibly know everything about what's going on, and yet it's so simple to blame one person for it, isn't it? Well....if you're going to blame one person, blame Bush, who caused new record debts every year he was in office and spent ludicrous amounts on defense. Blame conservatives who don't believe that healthcare is a right of all people, or who spend their time making sure these reforms don't pass Senate. They can sit there and complain about how Barack gets nothing done when THEY'RE the ones causing it by fighting everything he does no matter how well-intentioned it is, just because they want to show how supportive of their party they are. If you don't know, our national debt and deficits will cause our social systems to collapse in under 40 years if something isn't done. In less than 15, no one but the richest 10% will be able to afford health insurance. But no, let's fight any kind of progress in our country...let's just sit still and never advance as a culture again. Let's slander everyone who cares about everyone and not just themselves as socialists and facists, and make up lies about how socialized healthcare will collapse our economy, even though almost half the countries on Earth now have some form of socialized healthcare. Let's completely ignore the education gap in our country that we can't pay for because people are too afraid of increased taxes (a NECESSARY THING). America has one of the lowest tax rates on Earth, and it shows in our lack of services. No other country has such a high percentage of students emerging from college with such debt. Most other countries fund their children's educations through taxes because they realize that they're investing in their future.

Bad form, Orbit.

...You will thank me some day.