One beautiful morning, Rush Limbaugh was playing golf at his favorite course, the impossibly exclusive Gold Doubloons and Pieces of Eight Links.
A gorgeous blonde caddy gently drew near, followed by a large, rough-looking man with a bristling beard. She smiled at Rush, causing him to forget about golf – but only for a moment. “Mister Limbaugh?” Her voice was a sweet song.
He champed down on his ever present cigar and, scowling intently at his putter, replied, “Yeah, Melody. What can I do for you?”
“There’s a gentleman here who wishes to speak to you, Sir… please allow me to introduce the world famous fisherman, Alaska Al.”
The men met, shook hands, then sighed, as together they watched Melody gracefully glide away, her tiny caddy uniform barely containing her soft, firm curves.
As it turns out, Alaska Al wanted to trade a day on the golf course for a day of fishing at his secret location off the coast of Alaska. Called Jurassic Park, it held the promise of great excitement with fish so huge that the only other place they were found was in Heaven.
Rush quickly agreed, and Melody was called back to witness the I.O.U. scrawled on the back side of a golf score card by Al. It guaranteed Rush a day of excellent fishing and promised to be a welcome break from the humdrum of golf.
But, in spite of his momentary excitement at the prospect of doing something worthwhile (fishing) instead of wasting his time (golf), Rush stuffed the I.O.U. away and forgot about it.
Several years later, his new cleaning lady, a beautiful blonde, flowed up and smiled, “Mister Limbaugh?” Her voice had the warble of a song bird.
Rush looked up from his copy of Jude Wanniski’s book, The Way the World Works, and growled, “Yeah, Melody, what can I do for you?”
“Sir, I found this. It fell out of an old golf bag.”
It was Alaska Al’s I.O.U., tattered but still in one piece, still as good as gold.
The story continues, but I stop here to make the point: no matter that the I.O.U. was years old, it still had the same worth as the day it was written. It hadn’t inflated, deflated, floated, or any of the other things that happen when money is involved.
This comparison shows something is wrong with our dollars.
Our monetary system should be at least as sound and reliable as that promissory note.
We shouldn’t have to tolerate our money becoming worth less from day to day and year to year. Its value should be at least as solid over time as the I.O.U. written by Alaska Al.
August 21, 2007
The Limbaugh Deal – Grimgold
4 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
I kept expecting to see a humourous conclusion to the story. Instead you gave us a nostalgic bit of wishful thinking.
Once upon a time, the US monetary system was based upon the gold standard. A dollar was worth a set weight of gold. But this system is decades gone, and there is no feasible way to bring it back. The people in charge of the money market make colossal profit from the current system.
I’d also like to go back to the days of Leave It To Beaver. The only problem is, those days never really existed.
Comment by Peregrin — August 23, 2007 @ 12:08 am
William Jennings Bryan tried to run for President a hundred years ago on this issue. He lost.
What makes you think there is a magical item, commodity, a good to trade, sell or buy, that DOES NOT INCREASE OR DECREASE IN VALUE, so solid that we should base our currency on it? There is no such magical animal, vegetable or mineral.
What makes you think that gold, silver or anything else would be what we should base our currency on? I agree that basing it on a precious metal makes more sense than basing it on the full faith and credit of the United States of America. But those precious metals fluctuate in value every day.
Bart, what is this guy doing on your blog? What is the point of letting him rant?
Comment by Daddy-O — August 23, 2007 @ 11:40 am
I’m not ranting! We certainly can go to a non-inflating dollar, and this without going to a gold standard. All that’s necessary is for the publlic to finally understand it. They don’t, it’s not taught in our schools and so it goes on.
Only the federal govt benefits from inflation. This is wrong.
Comment by grimgold — August 24, 2007 @ 10:02 am
So, grimgold…are you an economist in your day job?
You claim we can go to a non-inflating dollar? How could we possibly do that?
There are so many economic forces at work that are UNCONTROLLABLE, working to inflate, de-flate, de-value and over-value our currency. They’re all working simultaneously. The international currency markets are just one example; the Fed’s toying with their various interest rates; the housing and mortgage markets; the Federal DEFICIT; OTHER countries’ economic woes and strengths; the list is almost endless.
For you to sit there and claim we can do something about this with the little evidence you provide is LAUGHABLE. Sorry, dude, but you’re going to actually have to do some homework before you’re going to convince anyone but yourself that you have the Magic Bullet of Economic Success.
All that’s necessary is for the public to finally understand it…
Understand WHAT? And if you respond with anything less than a PhD.-worthy 60 pages of lengthy reports and charts, fahgetaboutit, aayy. Do us all a favor and post the PUNCHLINE to that Rush Limbaugh joke.
Is Grimgold a pseudonym for Bartcop? Is this your inner conservative economist coming out? That would be fine with me.
But leave the simple solutions to complex economic problems to the experts. I’ll bet Hillary knows more than a few…
Comment by Daddy-O — August 24, 2007 @ 10:39 am