Statue of Larceny-A Look at Bail-out America

Plans were announced yesterday for the resumption of the WPA, or Works Progress Administration, the Depression-era agency developed by FDR to create jobs for the waves of unemployed workers suffering through the financial doldrums stretching from 1935-1943. Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson announced that construction would begin on a new tourist attraction to be developed for display in New York Harbor across from Frederic Auguste Bartholdi’s Statue of Liberty. Bartholdi’s magnificent work of art was believed to rival the ancient Colossus of Rhodes and was built on an iron frame designed by Gustave Eiffel who later created the eponymous tower in Paris. This new program is dedicated to the federal government’s decision to embrace European socialism and replace the concept of American Exceptionalism with the promotion and subsidization of failing industries. The new focus will be on providing support primarily for those companies and industries that have clearly demonstrated that they are incapable of succeeding in the free market. Work will begin on the “Statue of Larceny” with the onset of the Obama administration on January 21, 2009. Whereas Miss Liberty holds a torch to, as Bartholdi saw it, “Enlighten the World,” this new statue will be modeled after Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. The statue will hold a figure said to represent Adam Smith, burning in effigy. To compliment Liberty’s shining and inspirational sonnet written by Emma Lazarus, the new statue will feature a plaque with these lines:
Release, once great land, your honest merchants, Send instead your myopic mismanagers Wanting something free.Those to whom a balance sheet is Mere scratch paper yetStill desirous of Bonuses in 7 figuresAnd parachutes of platinum and more. The wretched refuse of Standard & Poor, Send these, the senseless, bereft of wisdom,For them I lift my lamp beside the Golden Door.
Mayor Bloomberg of New York City announced plans to charge a toll to the ferry boats expected to bring tourists to the new attraction and asked that the manufacturers of plastic bags, oils containing trans-fats, and the tobacco industry be prevented from enjoying the new subsidies provided by the new Federal programs in the event that his policies succeed in destroying their profitability. This was done in the form of an amendment to Bloomberg’s request for $400 billion in federal funds for the once Big Apple. Paulson had no comment on Bloomberg’s request.