America The Costly

Ah, subprime. You can hear the venture capitalists screaming in their uneasy sleep as the mortgage-backed securities they used to use to clean up after a steamy session of solo sex plummet in value, like so many used lottery tickets. Hell, out of my back window I can see places that young, stupid couples used to call home. Now, they're like the older prostitutes in a brothel; working double-hard to show that their new, reduced foreclosure value is a good deal, an economical lay for a john with less discerning tastes.

On top of all that craziness is that demon banshee ethanol, the new monkey on the back of the energy economy; a magical elixir sent down upon us from the Corn Goddess herself to keep the truck lanes flowing with overpriced grain and clandestine nuclear waste. Never mind that the grain and milk are more expensive because the Corn Goddess wasn't slutty enough to put out enough produce for both the rice racers and the cattle. You can't blame the farmers; they'll grow whatever crop keeps them from going into debt.

A week or two ago, I heard that gas prices were going to hit $4 by summer, and I pretty much ignored it. That's what we've learned to do recently, collectively as American citizens in a badly mismanaged federation; just ignore the doomsayings and hope that there's enough of a country left at the end of this reign of apathetic terror to rebuild. It was a shock to come back from a long drive and see the pumps had jumped by a quarter, seemingly during my travails. I don't know about you, but I'm going to stock my acorns for winter and hope that somebody is smart enough to blow all this over.