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Thurston Thornton Tells It Like It Is!
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Bailing Out the Big Boys

October 6, 2009

Why, you may ask, has Thornton waited over a year to comment on the all-important matter of the government's massive bailout program, otherwise known as TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program? Well, to answer that question, I've been busy. There have been some good reruns on television, plus I've been working on cleaning my carpet for several months. I'm using an old toothbrush and baking soda. It's taking a while, but I save money that way. I've almost done a third of my living room already.

Okay, here's the thing about government bailouts. It's all a matter of who gets them. For example, say you want to bail out people who are about to foreclose on their homes. Well, that's just outright communism. How do we expect to teach people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and be responsible? That's rewarding irresponsibility, that's what I say.

Once again, methinks I hear the voices of misguided and deluded liberals, saying: "Well, lots of folks lost their jobs because of the economic downturn, and that's why they have to foreclose on their homes. Look at the foreclosure rate before the economic downturn, and look at it now, Thornton! It has gone way up! So, it's not their fault that they've had to foreclose!"

Listen here, you bunch of lily-livered nincompoops. When those people took jobs at those companies, they knew the risk. That's what happens when you work for other people. Maybe times will get lean and the company will have to trim off the fat, so the main thing is to make sure that you are not the fat in that company. You've got to show the boss that you are indispensible. For example, you could go wash and wax his car for free, compliment his wife's dress and earrings at an office party, put an attractive picture of the boss on your desk and make sure he sees it when he passes by, things like that. It's not rocket science, people.

Also, and let me be frank here, some companies are losers, so you should have the good sense not to work for them. If they go under, don't blame the company, but rather blame yourself for having chosen to work there. The best way to tell if a company is going to fail is to see how it treats its workers. If the workers are well-paid, have an excellent benefits plan, and good job security, and the company strives to be ethical in every way, you need to get out right away and find another job. Those are the kinds of companies that fail because they can't compete with other companies that know how to put their bottom line before any teddy-bear sentiments.

Look here, you should consider getting a job at Wal-Mart. They will never go out of business, ever, and as long as you do what you're told and serve them with heart and soul, you can work for them forever. Sure, they don't pay well, but that's why they are successful, that's why they can keep their prices down. The less they pay you, the more you can buy from them when you go shopping. So, it really works out in your favor if you think about it.

Even better, consider going into business for yourself. There are a number of stories about people who started out with nothing but the shirts on their backs and ended up with gold-plated Jacuzzi tubs in multi-million-dollar mansions. How did they do this? They clawed and scratched their way to the top and took no prisoners. They worked night and day and day and night and paid their employees as little as possible and paid off politicians and destroyed competitors and mowed down forests and outsourced jobs to India and bought everything from China and had several mistresses and got in their Lear jets and flew to a different golf course every weekend. Most importantly, they registered their corporations in the Cayman Islands.

You should do this, but you won't, because you just don't know how to grab life by the balls and squeeze. No, you'll just keep on working for the guy with the gold-plated Jacuzzi tub. He's living large, and you're just getting by. And it's your own damned fault.

Now, I must admit here that I am not a particularly wealthy man. I should also say that I have never had a job because I have never needed one. My family has owned land in this county for generations. We got our land back in the 1800s when an ancestor of mine picked up his rifle, mounted his horse, rode off with his fellow soldiers, and took it away from the Injuns. Folks, that was the American way, but these days the communist government that we have won't let us take away the Injun reservation land that's left. Let me tell you, that land is ours. Let us finish the job and take what remains.

People that live on my land pay rent and I collect it. Sometimes I hire folks to fix broken stuff in the buildings and homes that I rent, but I do that as little as possible. It's expensive, I tell you. So what if the floor rotted through and there's a hole in your living room? Walk around it, that's what I say. But no, they tell me I've got to fix it or they'll get the chamber of commerce involved or something. That's the problem with renters, as a rule they complain way too much. If they want something nicer, they should move out and rent one of those fancy luxury apartments out there somewhere. Oh, but they don't have the money for anything nicer, of course, because they work at Wal-Mart. And if they work at Wal-Mart, it's their own damned fault. They should go into business for themselves, but will they? No, they won't, because they don't have what it takes to make it in this world.

But let me get back to the whole bailout business. I guess I got sidetracked there for awhile. Like I said, bailouts to the teeming masses are a bad idea. That would send the commoners the wrong kind of message. They might think that they could depend upon the government for help in hard times, when they should depend upon nothing more than their gumption and independent American spirit when things get tough. Look here, if the American people have to, they can live off a diet of cockroaches and bat droppings. They don't need a single damn thing from the government.

Listen, government is not the solution, it's the problem. Government is bad and can't do anything right. So, vote for people who say that and you'll have the best kind of government, the kind that doesn't put any restrictions whatsoever upon that guy with the gold-plated Jacuzzi tub.

However, as bad as bailouts are for the average American commoner, bailouts for big corporations are another thing. Simply put, some corporations are too big to fail. There is too much money tied up in them, too many powerful people invested in them, too much riding on whether they succeed or fail, so they must succeed come hell or high water. Ultimately, these bailed-out corporations make our American way of life possible, and that way of life is not negotiable, as John McCain has said. No, we will not negotiate the right to work at Wal-Mart and buy everything at Wal-Mart. We will even go to war to defend that right if necessary. But most importantly, those bailouts keep our corporation presidents in their gold-plated Jacuzzi tubs. They worked hard and played by the rules and paid off the politicians and so they deserve to be bailed out by the government. Did the average bozo working at Wal-Mart do any of that? No! So, there should be no government handout for that guy. He should just be grateful that he has a job in the first place, because times are hard these days.

Anyway, let me go a bit deeper with this argument. Let's take a hard look at how the American economy works. Many people that work pay taxes. Many people that work are working for large corporations, which in turn depend upon financial giants like the recently bailed-out company AIG. Let AIG fail, the large corporations fail, working people lose their jobs, and the government loses tax revenues.

What's the upshot of all this? Plain and simple, American taxpayers didn't really bail out Wall Street. No, what happened is that Wall Street bailed out Wall Street, because the tax dollars put into the till by the average American worker, and subsequently used for TARP, were more often than not earned on a job at a large corporation!

You see, what makes my editorials different from the editorials of other conservative wannabes is that I call it like I see it. The American worker is nothing more than an insignificant cog in the machine that is corporate America. The purpose of corporate America is to improve its bottom line, not to serve the interests of its damned workers! The guy with the gold-plated Jacuzzi tub didn't go into business to help the American commoners have a better standard of living! No, he went into business so that he could have a kick-ass Lear jet and a bunch of hot mistresses thirty years younger than he is. That's the dynamic that makes this a great nation. And if we change that dynamic, this nation is going to hell in a hand basket and will end up totally socialist and communist and worst of all they'll take away your guns and force you to worship the Antichrist and tattoo the numbers 666 on your forehead.

"Won't you tell me where my country lies?" said the unifaun to his true love's eyes...