12/13/2012 Portland, Oregon - Pop in your mints…
On a rainy Thursday morning in Southeast Portland’s
Bipartisan Cafe, we sit, slowing sipping our coffee with REM’s “The end of the world as we know it” playing softly in the background. The clouds and rain match the mood of our companion, Dr. Roger Doomsday, the world’s leading Apocalypse consultant. Dr. Doomsday, who has not even touched his mug since it arrived 10 minutes ago, stares quietly out the window at the traffic passing on SE Stark and only wonders what might have been.
After what seems like an hour, the famed Apocalypse Consultant breaks the silence,
“They just don’t get it,” he laments.
Flash back to 1999. Dr. Doomsday, who had previously helped groups such as the
Branch Davidians, the
Peoples Temple, and the
Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God prepare for the coming Apocalypse, was riding a wave of hope.
“I did a great disservice to my early clients,” Doomsday says, in the first of many understatements he would utter. “Back then, my advice was too practical, I thought ‘hey, if you don’t want to go through this thing and have a better place to go to, why wait around for the Apocalypse?’”
Unfortunately for those of the Peoples Temple, Doomsday’s advice had horrific consequences which led to the greatest loss of civilian life in the US prior to 9/11.
After freeing himself from a slew of civil and criminal charges related to the matter, with the help of a then relatively unknown lawyer named
Johnny Cochran, he began to reconsider his methods.
“I thought, rather than telling people to evacuate the planet before the inevitable occurs, why not try riding it out in style?” He then lets out what we interpreted to be both a chuckle and a sob, “I guess Koresh took my advice a little too far.”
After the Branch Davidian fiasco, in which Doomsday claims his only error was “not counting on the FEDs showing up,” which was understatement number two of the morning, according to our count, the resilient Doctor, with the encouragement of his well paid legal counsel, again changed his approach.
“I began to wonder if counseling people to heavily arm themselves and live as gluttons in far away retreats was the right thing to do, so I dropped the firearms stockpiling from my standard Apocalypse preparedness program in favor of a greater allocation of funds towards revelry.”
Fast forward to Uganda in 1999. Again, on the advice of Dr. Doomsday, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God throws an epic party as what they deemed the end of the world as they knew it was approaching.
Unfortunately, a fire breaks out, enacting a heavy death toll on the revelers. Again, another one of Doomsday’s clients leaves a trail of shattered lives as time nonchalantly marched forward.
“What happened in Uganda was lamentable,” Doomsday explains, “but I felt I was finally getting it right, and my official recommendation never involved open fires.” Somehow, we felt that he was strangely giving a sales pitch and a disclaimer to us all in the same phrase, like the advertisements you hear on the radio.
With his approach strangely validated, albeit in his own mind, Dr. Doomsday moved from specializing in consulting obscure religious sects to taking his approach, which he called “Party like its 1999,” until The Artist, formerly known as The Artist Formerly known as Prince, formerly known as Prince, successfully sued Doomsday for copyright infringement, to both large corporations and governments.
“While the Apocalypse is always just around the corner, I had an incredible stroke of luck when the Mayan prediction began to be widely disseminated. With the year 2000 in the past and the Jewish Messiah’s arrival famously unpredictable, I needed something for people to latch onto, an end date they could all embrace.”
For the Apocalypse Consultant, the Mayan’s 12-21-2012 cryptic codex interpretations came like manna from heaven.
“What do they mean? No one can tell, but I can tell you what those native stone carvings and the wild imagination of the archaeologists who encountered them meant to me, about $1 billion, yes,
billion in net fees over the past twelve years!” exclaimed the Dr. with more incredulity than joy in his voice.
For the past twelve years, Doomsday has traveled the globe helping both corporations and governments to squander what he estimates to be “Eight centuries of accumulated wealth” in just over a decade.
“Everybody wanted a plan, Citibank, JPMorgan, all the big banks, Cargill, GE, Xerox,” recalled Doomsday, “the Department of Defense even had something called Homeland Security created as a vehicle for passing wealth straight to the sewers of history. GW himself came up with the name, said it reminded him of home cooking, or something like that.”
“Some took my recommendations too far, too soon,” continued Doomsday, “Enron, Tyco, and Bear Stearns got all excited and blew up early, that was always the danger, blowing through the resources before the Apocalypse arrived.”
“‘How much is enough?’ everyone wanted to know, so I said “you know your retirement calculator? Just shift your life span to end on 12-21-2012,” he laughed, “worked like magic, and saved me a ton of accounting fees on the back-end!”
He now stares at the commuters passing down Stark on their way to work or school through the Bipartisan’s window as shakes his head. ”I can only wonder what might have been,” he says, with a tone of regret.
While he believes much wealth has already been squandered, he can only wonder what might have been had the corporations fully implemented his recommendations. However, corporations, who seemed to eagerly embrace his ideas early, have been too slow to act.
Dr. Doomsday’s standard recommendations, which he calls “no-brainers” if the world is about to end, involved a number of disincentives for employees to work.
“Categorically, I told employers to slash benefits and freeze wages, something that many waited until a couple of years ago to do. Still, many employees saw the writing on the wall and retired, while others, notably union workers, clung to their jobs in the face of deep cuts…I didn’t see that coming!”
The idea was that, with such a disincentive to work, employees would do the math, retire, cash in their 401Ks and party or otherwise spend irrationally with 12-21-2012 in sight. Simple on paper, but in practice, Dr. Doomsday underestimated the influence of one key factor: The influence of the Apocal-skeptic.
It turns out, not everyone believed that the world would end on 12-21-2012. Even when presented with the temptation to spend an estimate 800 years of accumulated savings in just 12, some people just couldn’t take the bait.
“The Apocal-skeptics didn’t believe it. What was so clearly carved in stone by
people smarter than ourselves some 3,000 years ago somehow didn’t register with them as credible evidence. Only now is my phone blowing up with calls asking how to fast track recommendations which were laid out to debauch the earth over a minimum of 7 years to be executed in a week. I threw my phone in the Willamette last night…I can’t take it, we had a golden chance and we wasted it, or didn’t, as it were.”
His sorrow is now evident, as a tear streams down his unshaven face.
“I mean, Citi just now laid off 11,000 workers? They barely have time to blow their 401Ks on unbridled debauchery. This isn’t how it was supposed to go down.”
Staring back at the window, he cries, “and these people look like they’re going to work!” as he slams his fist on the table, causing the half awake patronage to look in his general direction
“The only ones who truly got it are the Western Governments. I mean, in sheer numerical terms, they have hit the ball out of the park when it comes to squandering wealth,” He continues, ”the Governments were already squandering an impressive amount of capital, I just gave them a reason to go all the way.”
While Doomsday still thinks the Government overdid it on things like defense spending, education, and cleaning up the environment, activities he says have no place in an apocalyptic mindset, he can’t deny the numbers.
“While I would have preferred to see my program of night club and amusement park development fully implemented, on net, they (Western Governments) have been the most proactive in encouraging leisure, revelry, and the ‘eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die’ mindset that is they very core of my philosophy,” he pauses and shakes his head, “they’ve done their fair share, but the people have failed them.”
He blames the human tendency to plan for the future, a survival mechanism which, he admits, takes time to overcome, as well as the Fiscal Cliff, which he claims is a myth which is perpetuated by Apocal-skeptics in the US congress who have a vested interest in the status quo, for derailing many of his recommendations before they made it out of committee and into various spending packages.
“I admit,” continues Doomsday, “that parts of my program, such as converting ship yards to churn out cruise ships and one of my favorites, constructing fraternity and sorority houses, as well as subsidies for inflatable play structures, seemed a bit far-fetched even for those convinced that the Apocalypse was coming…but our differences were more about how to waste the money, not whether or not it should be wasted,” he sighs, helplessly, “now they are setting up rules for Obamacare!”
Obambacare is a sore subject for Dr. Doomsday. It was the antithesis of what he deemed a proper Apocalyptic health care system.
“For goodness sake, all you needed were some ERs to mend the thrill seekers. Primary and preventative care? Vaccinations? Treating people with pre-existing conditions? What are we trying to do, make people think they’ll live forever?!?!?!?!”
He shakes his head in resignation that a once in a lifetime opportunity was lost.
“I did my part, I told people how to properly waste money, gave them an endless bucket list, and the framework for the common man and woman to live out their numbered days in pure, shameless debauchery. I even led by example.”
{Editors note: In his last statement, Doomsday is referring to his lifestyle which, up until his personal fortune was exhausted last week, made Hugh Hefner and most gangster rappers blush}.
As the rain falls, we take a look at our iPhone, suddenly, as the digital display ticks another minute towards 12-21-2012, we realized that Dr. Doomsday, like the famous Gambler who spoke with Kenny Rogers, had given us an ace that we could keep.
We quickly thanked Dr. Doomsday, though he doesn’t respond as he stares blankly out onto Stark street, and bolt out the door, right past the thought of paying the tab. We didn’t even bother to take his pulse as our internal clock turned up the volume as the seconds began to tick away with an eerie clarity in our mind.
We dialed our 401k provider as we run out the door of the cafe, barely noticed by those half awake on this dreary Portland morning.
“Yes, I need my account liquidated and the funds delivered to me in cash as soon as possible…I know there are fees associated…just do it, I will be by to pick it up within the hour.”
As we begin to dial airlines, the voice of reason screams out, barely audible above the ticking in our head, something along the lines of, “Stop!”
That would be the last we heard from him, as we call our family and friends and invite them to an all expenses paid party in paradise.
Stay tuned and
Trust Jesus.
Stay Fresh!
David Mint
Email:
davidminteconomics@gmail.com
Key Indicators for December 13 2012
Copper Price per Lb: $3.63Oil Price per Barrel: $86.33Corn Price per Bushel: $7.1210 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.73%FED Target Rate: 0.16% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,697 THE GOLD RUSH IS ON!
MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 0.25%Unemployment Rate: 7.7%Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.1%Dow Jones Industrial Average: 13,171 M1 Monetary Base: $2,527,700,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base: $10,375,100,000,000
