Saturday, February 27, 2010

The Fix

I have an absolutely certain way for our federal government to save enormous amounts of money and each of you can help. After you read this Foolishness?, please write your respective Members of Congress and urge my plan’s immediate adoption.

I am sure you will see the wisdom of what I am about to propose to you…
This could be Big…Really Big!
  • Anytime there is any kind of financial hiccup in Washington The Fix is always to raise taxes.
  • It is the first thing our 9% Approval Rated Congress turns to.
  • Once The Fix is turned to, Congress does not do any more turning because they know they are on the correct path along the Road to Recovery.
  • After imposing The Fix, they always head off to Happy Hour with the satisfaction of knowing they have done their jobs well.

My idea does not attempt to alter this Works-Every-Time-Fix of theirs. My plan is actually an augmentation to their time tested and proven course of action

  • There is a tremendous and on-going expenditure of tax payer funds involved in flying Members of Congress back and forth to Washington.
  • What Congress could is to have each of its members sign 10 Pre-Tax Increase Authorizations (PTIA) each January.
  • The PTIAs could then be thrown into the Vote Basket by low pay scale clerks throughout the year as is necessary to keep the tax increase mechanism humming along.
  • The members would not even have to go in each January to sign that year’s PTIA’s.
  • They could email them in from wherever they are (golf course, tanning salon, bar, etc).

This is so well thought out that the only Members of Congress that actually need to be in Washington are the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House.

Remember the Dunkin Donuts Baker in the commercial from years ago? He was shown entering his Dunkin Donuts and saying, “Time to make the donuts”. The Speaker and the Leader could just phone each other and say, “Time to get out the Vote Basket”.

Once the process is started the vote and the resultant tax increase could be done in less than an hour. Then they could go to Happy Hour. Yes, I know Happy Hour will be kind of lonely and not near as much fun but that is the price that they will have to pay for the honor of being leaders in our great Democratic Republic.

There is a flaw in this seemingly perfect course of action. Over the years you, my dear readers, have proven your savvy and I am sure that most of you have already seen it.

Because of the tremendous reduction in air travel by Members of Congress, the Airline Industry will suffer significant loss of revenue. This will, of course, mean that Congress will have to pass a law granting the Airline Industry substantial subsidies. This will, of course, mean that we will have to have a Tax Increase.

Would I kid u?

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Why Did I Buy All That?

Don’t know why you just bought what you bought? That’s because you may have lost control of your power to make shopping decisions. Why is that? How did that happen? It’s because you have fallen victim to…
Neuromarketing Techniques (Did I just hear you say, "Huh?")
An article in The Wall Street Journal informs me that the good people who bring you Campbell’s Soup have been conspiring against you…

  • They have concluded a two year effort to figure how to get you to buy more soup.
  • They are going to help you connect on a deeper level with their soups through the design of their soup can labels.
  • Their research has been studying microscopic changes in skin moisture, heart rate, depth and pace of breathing, posture and other biometrics that happen when a shopper makes eye contact with different soup can labels.
  • They now better understand how near-instant brain and body responses relate to how people generate meaning from new label information presented to them.
  • They now better understand the neurological and bodily responses to an ad rather than how people thought they had reacted to that ad.
  • They understand how you are emotionally engaged with their soup can presentation.

Yes, dear reader, you just may find your shopping cart full of many varied varieties of Campbell Soups and you will have no idea how those cans got into your now overflowing basket.

It seems the days of some soup guys going out to lunch and scribbling a new label on a paper napkin have come to an end.

I hope they have not paid so much attention to the design of their soup can labels that they forget the Dog Food Convention

  • The General Sales Manager stands up before his entire national sales force.
  • He proceeds to get them all revved up with a series of cadenced questions…
    o “Who has the best dog food marketing program in the dog food industry?”
    o The response is, “We do!”
    o “Who has the most attractive dog food can and labeling in dog food industry?”
    o The response is, “We do!”
    o Who spends the most money on advertising in the dog food industry?”
    o The response is, “We do!”
  • Having laid his trap, he gets real serious and angry and he shouts at his sales force, “Then why in the hell are we last in sales in the industry?”
  • An old time dog food salesman in the front row replies, “Cuz the dogs don’t like the dog food.”

Would I kid u?”

Friday, February 12, 2010

Diffusing Public Outrage

It happens all the time. The Folks Back Home (that’s us) get excited about something outrageous that is happening in Washington, D.C. For example, imagine that we get all lathered up because Congress is proposing a steep tax on popcorn sold in movie theatres. We demand to know how this can be justified. Their response is typically Washingtonian … “Because the popcorn kernels are yellow before they are popped but the popped corn is white after it is popped”.

We folks back home immediately see this as worse than Taxation without Representation but we see it as an evil form of Taxation with Representation which was certainly not the intent or our Founding Fathers.

We go ballistic. We make phone calls in protest. We send emails filled with indignation. We call Talk Shows and vent our spleens. We threaten to “Throw the Bums out of Office”. We threaten a lot. We seldom do any throwing.

Our 9% Approval Rating Congress becomes concerned about our indignation. They spring into action. They always diffuse such volatile situations by one simple oft-repeated action … They Appoint a Committee to Study the Situation.

These committees take on varied different names…
•Non-Partisan Committee
•Bipartisan Study Group
•Fact Finding Committee
•Independent Review Board
•Intraparty Committee
•Blue Ribbon Panel
•Obfuscation Committee

It works every time…
• This is seen by us folks back home as a serious attempt to rectify these egregious situations.
• We are told that we have been heard and Committee/Study Group/Board/Panel will meet five different times to zero in on our grievances and publish their results in fifteen months.
• We do not even get suspicious when we read that they are going to meet in Las Vegas, the Big Island in Hawaii (they choose the Big Island because it is emblematic of how Big they consider our concerns to be), Paris, Sydney and in the Mickey Mouse Conference Center in Disneyland in Florida.

We go back to our mundane lives content in knowing that our 9% approval rating congress is diligently looking into our protestations.

Twenty months later (whatever happened to fifteen months?) their conclusions are published in our newspapers on page twenty-three of Section C. It is just happenstance that this is the same day that some major news story has happened and the resultant dire consequences are plastered over all the front pages of the world.

Then one day we go to our local move theatre, buy a box of popcorn (smaller than it used to be) and find that the price has gone up dramatically.

Some of us don’t notice. Others of us say to ourselves, “Oh well”. A small minority of us contacts our members of congress and we are given an explanation that goes along these lines … “We definitely did not put a tax on popcorn! What happened was a tree fell on an ox cart in a logging area of Thailand which causes a worldwide shortage of paper products. The price increase you experienced in your last purchase of a box of popcorn in your local movie theatre was the effect of that worldwide paper products shortage. It’s market forces that caused your popcorn cost to increase.”

We, being the simple folk that we are, say to our duly elected Member of Congress, “Well that makes sense. Thank you for your efforts on our behalf. I will be sure to vote for you next time” … Or Will We?

Would I kid u?

Thursday, February 04, 2010

A Sure Fire Money Making Idea

I have enough money. Some of my dear readers do not have enough money. Since those of you who do not have enough money have been officially classified by our 9% Approval Rating Congress as Down Trodden, I am allowing one of you officially declared Down Troddeners to take my money making idea and run with it. In short order, the go getter among you who first seizes this opportunity will be transformed into one of the filthy rich. I am such a nice guy that I will not ask for a piece of the action.

A short while back I created a Foolish…Or Is It that directed your attention to the $270 pair of jeans in Bloomingdale's Department Store. Many of these worn out looking “bargain” jeans have slits in the knees. In fact, that is the most popular “alteration” seen on the jean scene. If the jeans do not come already cool (with slits), many of the dudes & dudettes out there will put the slits in with a knife as soon as they get home.

There are two Really Cool Hot Fads out there in The World of Cool…
• Slits in the knees of jeans.
• Tattoos on the human body almost everywhere you can imagine.

Do you see it? It ought to be jumping out at you! It’s Tattoos on Kneecaps!

When a modern day cool dude or cool dudette sits down, their kneecaps show through their cool knee slits. The person who patents the Tattoos on Kneecaps Idea is going be filthy rich!

I can just see tattoos peeping out at America…
• 2 Elvis'.
• Jessica & her latest squeeze.
• The Lone Ranger & Tonto.
• Tom Cruise & what's her name.
• Shaq & Kobe.
• Frick & Frack.
• Dale Earnhardt, the dead one & the not dead one.
• Ball Players, before they becoming bobble head doll looking persons & after they become bobble head doll looking persons.

The possibilities are endless!

Would I kid u?

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

What If Nothing Bad Happened?

I realize that this is Foolishness of the first order but let your mind wander with me a moment…

We all know by now that the people in the news reporting business truly believe that Good News Is No News. Most of us have heard the defense for this line of thinking which goes something like this …
It is not of any interest to the reading public to report all the cats that did not get caught up in trees today.

They may have a point. A newspaper that reported only good news would probably not survive. It still does not keep me from yearning to see a few good news headlines just for the heck of it.

If you have read this far, it means that you did let your mind wander with me, as I requested in the first paragraph above. Please stay and mind wander with me a little longer…

What if one day the newspapers of the world woke up and found there was No Bad News To Be Found Anywhere. What would they do? …
• Would they not publish a paper at all?
• Would they be required by union contracts to publish their newspapers and we would find bundles of newspapers with nothing printed on the pages thrown on our front lawns?
• With tears in their eyes, would they publish only good news?
• Would they falsify some bad news?
• Would their collective heads explode?

A Day With No Bad News might be interesting, it might be boring, it might be neat but I really think it would be all of these possibilities.

Would I kid u?