Broken News: US dominates world in outrage manufacturing capacity

WASHINGTON—While virtually all economic indicators continue to trend downward and forecasts for the world economy remain pessimistic about the length and breadth of a global recession, currency exchange rates, and imports/exports, stock markets were buoyed today by a new report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The report indicated that, despite US industrial manufacturing declining for the 5th straight quarter, the United States' outrage manufacturing capacity had risen for the 2nd quarter in a row by an astonishing 19.4%.

The growth was led largely by gains within the Interminable Whining About Bullshit, Half-Baked Conspiracy Theories, Fear of Foreign Devils, Mexicans Gonna Take Our Jobs, and Unsubstantiated Fears About Political Theories One Doesn’t Understand sectors. These recent gains, along with improvements made in the 4th quarter of 2008, allowed the United States to push past a declining France on the International Outrage Index.

“This truly shows the breadth and depth of the ingenuity of the American people,” observed lead statistician for the BEA, Adam Samuelsson. “Where other countries simply take our outrage and modify or improve upon it, we alone truly know how to innovate, create, and lead the world in manufacturing phony indignation over perceived slights and unsubstantiated persecution. Eat it, France! The US is back on top baby!”

Initial forecasts from the end of 2008 had been predicting a decline in US outrage for the 2009 fiscal year, mostly attributable to the fact that former president George W. Bush would be leaving office in mid January. This very event is believed to have caused the drastic decline in French enmity production towards the United States, long considered to be their strongest asset.

“I don’t think these analysts fully took into account the ability of the right wing sectors of this country to manufacture deluded hatred towards President Obama,” observed Dr. Harold Gerund, a statistician for the Princeton School of Mathematics. “These heroic Americans were able to step into a void of indignation and anger and furiously invent new shit to get livid about, basically within days of the inauguration. Add to that the inability of the left wing to get past their loathing of the departing Bush Administration despite the fact that the Democrats now control the White House and Congress. Luckily for the Outrage Index, there were still horrible new secrets and a crippling economic meltdown to fuel continued Bush hatred. Truly this country has been blessed with its utter inability to confront the world in an adult manner.”

Indeed the new Obama Administration has been able to simultaneously kick right wing industrial-strength outrage manufacturing into overdrive after a period of dormant inactivity while tamping down rival foreign outrage that would normally be directed at America.

In fact some countries are even coming to like America and its new President, a fact that has even further infuriated right wing outrage already brimming over with crippling paranoia from baseless fears of socialism, Obama’s Muslim heritage and/or birth certificate, UK-style health care, the liberal media, liberal fascism, terrorist appeasement, gay marriage, and Democratic Senators swooping into their cornfields and eating their sorghum.

“That’s the beauty of America,” said Samuelsson. “Not only are we able to get crazy mad about things we misheard or imagined, but we’re also able to crank up different sectors of our outrage capacity depending on whether foreign governments like us too much or too little. A diversified economy is a healthy economy.”

While some are quick to applaud the positive trends and our rediscovered dominance in developing and formulating ire, others are quick to point out that if the Middle East were to ever modernize its outrage manufacturing, we would not be able to keep up.

“God help us if they ever move their anger out of the Stone Age,” observed Samuel Grasscock of the Center for the Study of Pissed-off Arabs. “Imagine if they ever move their hatreds beyond a general hatred of the West and perceived persecution of their culture and religion? Imagine if they ever decided to get meta, like by getting outraged over the fact the we treat their outrage as some general, formless hatred of the West and freedom. Then we’d really be in for a manufacturing outrage gap.”

He then paused before yelling, “WHICH I AM VERY NERVOUS AND ANGRY ABOUT!!!”

When pressed for comment on the ways in which their petty complaints, delusional grievances, and deranged conspiracies were driving America’s upward manufacturing capacity trends, various movement leaders of right and left factions all seemed to be unanimously outraged that their outrage wasn’t being treated as a reasoned, rational response to a world gone mad.

Analysts are predicting that this outrage alone could result in a 2% bump for the next quarter.

Broken News: Paulson, Bernanke to Jump Economy on Rocket Cycles

Artist's conception of proposed cycle jump

WASHINGTON—In an innovative step designed to address the worsening worldwide economic crisis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and United States Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have announced their intention to jump the economy on custom-designed rocket cycles. The government's financial titans hope this dramatic gesture will reassure lending institutions and help open up frozen credit markets.

“This is the bold leadership our country needs in a time of crisis,” remarked Samuel Grasscock, economic analyst and host of NPR’s I Want to Eat the Corn Out of Money's Shit (Weekdays 3-4 PM). “I just don’t think these bailout plans restored enough confidence in the system. The government might have thrown $700 billion in taxpayer money at the problem, but did it gamble with anything that really mattered? Now P-Son and Big Bank are putting their lives on the line. I think Wall Street is going to be impressed. We might just get out of this.”

While excitement has whirled through the banking world, questions have arisen as to the logistics of such a jump. Will Paulson and Bernanke simply jump Wall Street, or will the plan call for a pass over the Chicago Stock Exchange as well? Including the CSE would necessitate a jump over the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, not to mention the House Oversight Committees and any bills relating to financial regulation. Perhaps these various institutions, with all their suspicious liabilities, could be bundled into one institution and placed elsewhere, providing a clear angle of approach for Bernanke and Paulson.

“We’re goin’ whole hog,” said Dr. Ronnie “Handsome Devil” Tucker, former daredevil relegated to stunt coordinator after his 1997 Jump-for-the-Kids ended with his careening through a children's cancer ward. “The entire United States, save Hawaii and Alaska. Coast to coast. One jump. How do you like them apples? Not only do we think it’s going to have a big effect on the financial and banking industries, but just think of all the other problems we’re jumping. Homelessness, job loss, health care, Wyoming. This one jump may cure them all!”

When asked how two motorcycles could possess enough speed to jump the entire continent, Dr. Ronnie was confident. “Look, people might doubt our ability, but we’ve been working for almost a month on the two most cutting-edge rocket cycles in existence. They cost almost $350 billion a piece and are state-of-the-art fuel drinkin', fire blazin' rocket machinery. The problem isn’t jumping the US; it’s that we might jump Europe, too. Once we finish the ramp and calibrate the bikes, it’s all smooth sailin’. I mean rocketing. Yeah, smooth rocketing.”

Still, some are asking, "Why now?" given that Congress passed the Paulson plan a few weeks ago, giving the Treasury Secretery almost completely unfettered access to deal with the problem as he saw fit. Why the seemingly complete scrapping of that entire plan for a new one involving rocket cycles?

“Look, larger action was needed,” said Secretary Henry “His name is Robert” Paulson from the US Rocket Bike Testing Grounds and Old Fashioned Candy Confectionary (USRBTGOFCC) on the outskirts of the Great Salt Flats. “We needed to grab the imaginations of Wall Street and show them we were committed to helping them address the catastrophe that arose directly as a result of their culture of endemic greed and shortsightedness. We’re showing them we mean business… Paulson style. Yesterday's Dow Jones gains gave us the confidence that we wouldn’t need to plug holes with stop gap measures, that we could go for the gusto and solve this problem once and for all. With big, rocket-based motor aerobatics.”

At that point Chairman Bernanke chimed in, having just emerged from the USRBTGOFCC’s Official Aquafina Rubdown, Hand Action, and Massage room. “Some people might be worried by the fact that Hank here conceived of a colossal 2-1/2 pages of bailout plan requiring the government's purchase of bad assets that he swore was the only solution, then abruptly switched to urging the government to buy equity stakes in banks, then decided he wanted to jump the economy with a rocket bike. But I am here to tell you there is no need to worry. He didn’t come up with Project Rocket Economy. It has been US policy for quite some time now.”

This much is true. The tradition of employing complex distractions to address dire situations was begun by Alexander Hamilton, America's first Treasury Secretary. Hamilton used fireworks attached to roller skates to jump over Virginia’s four finest mules to convince the country to authorize the US Mint. A distinctly less successful example is Ogden Mills' failed attempt to jump Fay Wray on the newly invented motor scooter during the early days of the Great Depression, an incident that is widely credited by historians with exacerbating the crisis.

The jump is tentatively planned for early next week, pending wind conditions and the erratic emotional state of Henry Paulson. The recent uptick in world stock markets has provided these two financial daredevils with the opportunity to solve this crisis once and for all. One hopes, if this is the plan they’ll actually stick to this time, that their rocket-based danger cycles will bring us back to sound economic footing.