In This Economy?

Am I the only one celebrating Ed McMahon’s death?

If you don’t remember who Ed McMahon is, check out this vintage clip from his work with Johnny Carson:

For those of you who don’t remember who Arsenio Hall is, that’s to be expected.

Back to the lecture at hand

Pay attention, people. Ed McMahon single-handedly brought down our economy. Let me bitterly explain.

First, let me correct the record. Ed McMahon was not the spokesman for Publishers Clearing House. He was the spokesman for American Family Publishers. I can see where the confusion comes in.

Now back to my fully justified rant.

A big reason our economy has sunk to a level where free Arby’s sandwiches sound like a good idea is that people have been living beyond their means for way too long. We bought houses we couldn’t afford. We ran up credit cards like we were trophy wives. We all thought we deserved such luxuries as truck nuts.

But who kept giving us hope that someday our ship would come in and everything would be alright? You guessed it: Joel Osteen.

Runner-up goes to Ed McMahon. How many people bought subscription after subscription of bullshit magazines just because they thought it gave them an extra shot at winning $10 million? It must be somewhere in the dozens.

So you had people who were already in debt, trying to get out of debt by going deeper into debt for an infinitesimal chance to receive some big payoff that would never come. And all the while, they felt their spending habits were validated because, hey, it’s all a drop in the bucket compared to the interest they’d be earning on the millions they were about to claim.

Next thing you know, they’re missing house payments, eating their pets and murdering their neighbors for an extra layer of skin to survive those cold winter nights.

Skin clothes

Blood and skin on his hands

You might think that none of this was Ed McMahon’s fault. “It was just a job for him,” you say. “He didn’t come up with the idea,” you say. “He’s not the first or last person to do something like that, and it sure seems harmless when you look at things on a larger scale.” Shut up. SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!

Ed McMahon’s perpetuation of false hope caused this recession, and there are no two ways about it. Case closed.

Now if you want a guaranteed moneymaker, buy lottery tickets. It’s win-win because the money you spend goes to our thriving and exemplary public schools.

Tags: American Family Publishers, Ed McMahon, false hope, money, recession, suckers

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 3:24 PM and is filed under Good News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.