Stepping in the Steaming Economy

Dr. X is otherwise engaged in this matter; I'm sure he'll have it all fixed up in no time. In the meantime, we here at Isengard.gov are here to provide economic solutions.

Problem 1: Highly complex derivatives are collapsing like a domino set of slightly less complex derivatives.

Solution: Starting immediately, investors must write out derivative formulas in longhand, and show their work, and be able to explain it clearly to an English teacher, who will then execute the actual investment.

Problem 2: The United States is devaluing the currency to pay for the Iraq war. Meanwhile, China is all getting empire-ry.

Solution: Value-add the dollar by hiring Apple's marketing team to release the "iDollar". Goad China into invading Iraq by calling them "Sissies." We invade the Cayman islands instead.

Problem 3: 30 years of flat real wages and a decade of super-hyper real estate speculation seem to have created some kind of housing bubble, which is now laying waste the world economy. No one could have seen that coming, except the Japanese, and everyone else who wasn't actually selling or buying real estate at the time.
Solution:

A. A 5000% tax on Tyvek.

B. Redistribute income to poor people, who spend it. They rarely sock it away in currency speculation in the Caymans. Also, take it from people who have it, because taking from people who don't is very ineffective.

Problem 4: Energy. There is no energy problem America faces that the industry can't worsen. Take the land grab in the Arctic for oil, made possible by Global climate instability- from oil! That's an industry solution.

Solution: NTF- Nationalize Those F*ckers. These are companies that if socialized, would stop pushing governments around. It would generate critical revenue to address war-related deficit spending, and if run with alleged government inefficiency, would do the planet a world of good.


Problem 5. Health Care. Canada does it okay, so let's give everyone in America a Canadian health care card. (Thanks for the solution, Dave Chappelle.)

Problem 6: The Dwindlies. Everything on Earth is dying. We are killing it as fast as our collective ingenuity allows us; it's profitable. The Earth is the apex of public goods, so globalized capitalism has no real mechanism to save it in time. If it did, it would be not be an open market, but rather a form of hegemonic monetarist oligarchy. (So....there is hope? )
In the meantime, Captialistic communism turns out to be another, more acidic form, only without the freedom part.

Solution: Reeducation camps. (Look how great China's doing!) Big ones - Ontario, maybe. Demanding crafts: woodworking, wine-making, beekeeping, crocheting, pottery. Mandatory poetry workshops. Make your own list of involuntary attendants. Worry about the economy after we run out of blackberry wine.