(IBD’s Michael Ramirez)

Here’s a bit of today’s disastrous economic news:

Unemployment goes up to 8.2%

Stocks plunge, on Pace for Worst Day in 2012

Government Motors outsources pensions, offers lump-sum buyouts

And what is Obama’s response to the disaster he’s created? Go buy a “Thingamajig.”

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22 Comments | Leave a comment
  1. Alain41 says:

    I’d like a 32 oz. coke & red bull to go with my thingamajig. What, I can’t get that? Well then supersize my fries. What, I can’t get that either? Okay, just mail the thingamajig to me. What do you mean the post office doesn’t work anymore? That reminds me, I haven’t received my tax refund yet. Why are you laughing? Can’t I get anything? I don’t want a rainbow halo sticker. Return to sender. Not before November? I can wait. Trust me. I will wait.

  2. Maynard says:

    This is the false paradigm at the heart of populist economics, the notion that we can consume our way to prosperity. If money is short and jobs are hard to get, go spend money! If have haven’t got money, then borrow it! Don’t need anything? Buy it anyway! It’s good for society! Spend enough and we’ll all be rich, and then you can pay off the debt.

    That’s the path to the graveyard, but it plays well at the polls. Nobody wants to hear that prosperity comes out of production, not consumption. That’s how we get ignoramuses like Obama at the helm, and that’s why we give them dictatorial powers over automobiles, banks, energy, healthcare, etc. That’s why, when things get worse, Obama can use his failures as justifications to grab ever-greater powers. That’s why Bain is evil but Solyndra is noble. That’s why those that look in horror at what is happening and work to save the nation from catastrophe are screamed at and called every filthy name in the book. That’s why our children will be serfs to the likes of China and Saudi Arabia.

    Is anyone listening?

    • makeshifty says:

      You know, I think I finally figured something out. I had been rather confused for years over what was meant by “supply-side economics,” also known as “trickle-down economics” by the Democrats. Supply-side economics is just fancy talk by economists to describe what’s needed right now: encouraging production. All this talk of “tax breaks for the rich” is just another way for Democrats to attack entities that engage in production. I think the fact of the matter is that Democrats genuinely believe that growth comes via. directed consumption. I think they want to see people employed (though they don’t mind them being employed by government at all), but they want people to go into what they consider to be “socially meaningful” jobs.

      I don’t know that progressives have ever understood how an industrial economy works. What they advocate comes out of an agrarian era, where when somebody wanted to farm another season, they didn’t go out and find venture funding. They borrowed money from a bank, using their farm and their crops as collateral. If you leave out industrial food production, the only way they can sell their crop is via. consumption. So naturally what they encourage through their policies is easy credit, and depreciation of currency, which encourages consumption. If you’re assuming that most people are employed in family farming (which is now a very small part of our economy), this model works. Now, looking at it from another angle, it also works if production is offshored, because foreign producers don’t care about investment here. What you have instead is a retail economy that sells what’s produced abroad. So it’s a similar sort of thing. What retailers want is easy credit so that consumers can buy what they sell. Don’t worry about production. Somehow I think China is getting everything it wants from us…

      I’ve heard the stat used that 70%+ of our economy is based on consumption. So naturally this segment of the economy wants to encourage that. They don’t care about production. Producers have a minority stake. What the consumption-based economy I think has yet to realize is that consumption is not going to increase without production. You can only “bleed” wealth for so long.

      Even though we fear deflation, because economists associate that with the Great Depression, given what we’ve done to our economic situation, I think that’s what we need, as painful as that will be. Deflation will encourage saving, due to higher interest rates, and dropping prices. Saving will encourage an industrial production cycle. Eventually interest rates and prices would stabilize, and consumption could resume. But this is assuming the government did absolutely nothing to interfere with the process, which given our current political climate is highly unlikely.

      What’s driving current policy now is the fact that China needs us to consume. They counter-balance inflation by manipulating their currency, so their prices remain low, and buying our treasury bonds, to keep our interest rates low. At some point this “circle” will have to break. I have no idea which part of it will break first, but I have a suspicion it will be our bonds.

      Really what’s ailing us is mercantilism, not here, but abroad. We haven’t recognized it and found an adequate response to it in 30+ years.

  3. kwilder says:

    Looks like #TOTUS started drinking early today… ;-)Someone needs to check #TOTUS prior to these appearances… That was a lot of nonsense there.

  4. geezee says:

    He is MOCKING THE POOR!!!! he spits on them!!! why oh why are they not pissed off?????!!!!!

  5. dennisl59 says:

    JUST got back from Lowe’s, where I was told to check Aisle ‘666’ for the Thingamajigs. Dang it!They were out, but they did have thingamabobs, whatchamacallits, gadgets, do hickeys, trinkets and doo-dads. Right next to all the ’round-to-its’. ‘cept I have plenty extra of those as spares in the pantry, right next to the gross of 100 watt light bulbs I bought earlier this year during the Great Light Bulb Panic of 2012.

    But they used their latest, up-to-date warehouse inventory system using GPS, was told a new shipment of Thingamajigs(in various colors and sizes) was on a boat from China, now in the middle of the Pacific, and headed to the Port of Long Beach…they’ll call me when they get here in Round Rock…

    posted 6/1 550pm Texas[Batteries Not Included…]Time

  6. Foreverautumn says:

    Hey, Urkel! Did it occur to you that buying too many thingamajigs is exactly why so many people are in so much credit card debt? Or in houses that are underwater, and, in some cases, can’t afford?

    Here’s a quarter, Urkel, go buy a frikkin’ CLUE!

  7. otlset says:

    Most thingamajigs are unfortunately made in China these days though, and although they’re cheap and they look sturdy, they break down pretty fast.

  8. ancientwrrior says:

    The only thingamajig I know of is in el Casa Blanca keeping all the rest of the vermin company.

  9. strider says:

    Sounds like a stoner.

  10. LucyLadley says:

    Thingamajig – GAG me with a furnace.

    • larrygeary says:

      A friend who did tons of cocaine early in life and knows the signs tells me it’s obvious that Obama snorts coke.

      EDIT: Sorry, I meant to reply to the “stoner” comment above.

  11. IslandLibertarian says:

    This is his answer to Romney speaking outside of the CLOSED FOR BUSINESS “Solyndra” building?
    FAILED government subsidized solar-thingamajigs!!!!

    ….and his sheeple just laugh with him and will vote for him………

  12. Runnyonempty says:

    If I remembered my Password, I’d change the thingamajig to a real picture…sigh.

  13. greenlantern2011 says:

    TRANSLATION: We are now officially out of ideas and just literally saying the first thing that pops into our head.

  14. midget says:

    Dennis- you forgot the kit and kaboodles.

  15. jeaneeinabottle says:

    JeezO, I want to say something much worse!! Arggggg! Refuse to lower myself to that, they won’t get me to do it!!! Akkkkk! I’ll pray for our great military instead!!!!

  16. trevy says:

    Translation; “Please! I’m beggin’ you! Go buy something so the economy improves and I get re-elected!”

    Well, I just happen to prefer Wachamacallits.

  17. Teri says:

    Absolute moron thru and thru. The idiots in the background chuckle. I’m sure Mooch has had a meal at an expensive restaurant for three thousand dollars, on us of course. Yea you dumb bastard, we will be kicking your thingamajig to the curb this November. And all your wachamacallits too.

  18. WalkStar says:

    Thingamajig: I believe that’s the technical term. See page 47 of the Sears catalog. Next to the left handed smoke-shifter. Sorry, not available in Plus sizes.

  19. WalkStar says:

    Like any baby comic, he measures success by the audience reaction. Call it his Laugher Curve. And no, it’s not funny.

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