2.16

My friends, in case you hadn't noticed, the times, they are getting rough. Being an English Major, I have no claim to economic expertise. I barely have claim to a checking account ("if you have no penny, a hay-penny will do" is not, I have discovered, sound financial advice). However, some folks who, so I've been told, are "in the know" have carefully, over the course of many painstaking hours, managed to teach me a bit about the economics. Apparently, it is "rather bad" when the "stock markets," after "periods of growth," finally "go down" (being, to put it politely, "innuendo inclined," you can imagine how counter-intuitive such a concept was to me). Particularly when they "go down" for a "long time" in "large numbers" (see above).

However, my ignorance aside, I can't say it's much of a surprise to anyone. Mainly because I'm sure that would be lying (although, I will grant you, the distinction between "lying" and "writing an op-ed column, which, as a matter of definition, is necessarily based upon unresearched, unsupported, and unsober opinions" is a thin, blurry line, at best). After all, one of the most common American pastimes is predicting how, one way or another, those who politically, religiously, or maritally disagree with us will destroy our nation (forget terrorists; it's your crazy redneck communist Orthodox Jewish in-laws you have to worry about).

In other words, we all saw it coming. We just thought America's demise would involve totalitarian, fundamentalist Christianity mandating police states or daily violent blood orgy in the street mandating police states. (My own personal prediction, the "police state mandating police state" was sure-fire in its reciprocal logic, but faced a serious chicken before police mandated egg problem)

At any rate, the economy is on the ropes. In times of trouble, people tend to look for answers. They tend to ask intelligent, learned individuals "in the know." Sometimes, they look for hope and optimism. Sometimes, they look for experience and practicality. And sometimes, rarely, when they're particularly hopeless, fearing nothing but the worst, they look for English Majors.

This is not because English Majors are adept at averting crisis. In fact, I'm pretty sure that, given enough funding, you could produce a study that blamed English Majors for this whole mess in the first place (ain't nothin' says "bad credit" like "I'm not so much a novelist as a weaver of dreams"). But what we lack in societal value, financial acumen, and self esteem, we more than make up for in making the best of our own failures.

We're used to taking middle class backgrounds with solid educational opportunities and turning them into a long string of wasted chances and regrets. We're used to debt, with no realistic method of escape. We're used to underemployment, with high school diplomas trumping college degrees. But despite all this, most of us still maintain a constant sense of smug superiority that keeps us going, no matter how much coffee we spill or checks we bounce.

Have you ever seen RENT? Where all these poor bums who apparently don't have jobs think they're revolutionary martyrs because they've got AIDS and "fight the man" while wondering why they're poor? Yeah. After the economic collapse, we'll all be "bohemian." It'll be more of a mandate than a choice, sure, but we'll still be all "being rich was so lame, this whole 'widespread poverty' thing has really helped me find myself." The economic crisis isn't the end of civilization! It's an opportunity for us to make our grandkids feel like underachieving jerks by virtue of the fact that we let ourselves get poor and lived to talk on and on and on about it.

I mean, look at the Depression. Sad times and all, true story. But we got a war out of it that spawned some pretty awesome video games, right? And Tom Brokaw even called the saps who made it out "The Greatest Generation." So don't worry. With a bit of spin, even the worst disaster becomes primo-quality material for a century of art/media. We've a horde of second-coming-Steinbecks waiting for their chance to chronicle the next few decades. They've been practicing for years. In a couple more, they might finally get their chance.