What with all the governmental intervention in big finance, big auto manufacturing, big insurance, and big real estate, there are no doubt a lot of important industries that have been left behind. No one is offering to bail out big law firms that are struggling the way that big financial houses have been assisted, for instance — and what will happen to the nation if Arrogant, Expensive & Condescending LLP has to consolidate its Midtown and Wall Street Manhattan office locations? Why isn’t there any outcry of support for speedboat manufacturers or our embattled wine industry?
Well, there are leaders in at least one major industry who aren’t going to stand by and let themselves get left behind the way these other guys did — they are boldly and patriotically standing up next to their industrial and financial brethren and sticking their hands out for public money to get them through the tough times that could otherwise run them into the ground. They’re going to stand up for themselves, their thousands of stockholders, and the tens of thousands of people who work hard, every day, to make life better for Americans and people everywhere.
I’m talking, of course, about the adult entertainment industry.
See, the guys behind Hustler Magazine and Girls Gone Wild want five billion dollars from the government to keep their production and distribution operations viable. DVD and magazine sales are down! What will happen in a world in which domestic producers of erotica are all squeezed out by the credit shortage and Americans are required to import all of our smut from Sweden and Vietnam?
See, it’s just not the same thing when you read a story that begins with “Jag är en elev vid ett litet universitet nära Köpenhamn, och du kommer aldrig tro detta men det som verkligen hände!!!”* And you can forget about special issues like “Girls of the SEC,” let me tell you what!
Judging by how much money Americans spend on pornography, this must be a pretty important industry. So, let’s dig the national debt even deeper by making Larry Flynt even richer than he already is with our hard-earned taxpayer dollars.
Or maybe we could come to our senses about literally lighting our collective money on fire. Not a penny spent on subsidizing banks, insurance companies, auto manufacturers, or mortgage lenders is going to do us the remotest bit of good. Banks have literally no idea where the money they took has gone. General Motors can’t possibly turn itself into a profit-producer in the 90 days that our tax dollars bought it. So let’s just bite the bullet already and get through this thing so that we can emerge from our troubles financially stronger than we were going in to it.
* “I am a student at a small college just outside of Copenhagen, and you’ll never believe this but it really happened to me!!!”
