Indicators look good

Today’s news tells me we don’t have a thing to worry about because the indicators are that the economy is doing just fine. Leading off, John Boudinot just got a nice new job in Missouri. If John can skewer himself a plum, who can’t?

He’s been presiding over Cincinnati’s public employee pension fund, where it has come to light that managers are illegally lending out the money, failing to cash checks, paying deceased retirees, etc., etc., etc. It's a sinking wreck. This goes back a ways, but has persisted even after a revealing audit in February 2007. In all fairness, I will lay some blame at the feet of the auditors.

They said that the pension management needed to put a system in place that would identify when payees died. Pension management did attempt to utilize an outside service to alert them through Social Security number tracking, but had spotty application. Here’s the punch line, though.

In cases where the system was able to flag a deceased, the pension plan still continued to pay. This is clearly the fault of the auditors because they just said to install a system to identify deceased payees. They failed to add, “and then don’t continue to issue checks to dead people.”

Next indicator is that the latest installment of the Obamas date nights features jetting to New York for dinner and a play. If you’re paying for an executive chef staff in the White House AND firing up the fuel-gulping 747 to go out and grab a burger, how bad could things be? Taxpayers must be rolling in it to underwrite this opulence. People went bonkers when some car execs crammed into a small jet to attend seminal economic meetings in DC. Peanuts compared to a mega-airframe for a night out. I don't hear the outcry, so the assumption must be economic recovery.

Go ahead. Just burn up those taxpayer dollars. It may be worth it just to see a president dating his own wife.

Also good news about patching up the hole in the ozone. Otherwise, why light up the big candle just so a couple people can grab a quick knosh? Next you’ll be telling me that Al Gore has a hundred-foot yacht.

And finally, news of a local entrepreneur who has been successful starting his company, “The Dog Janitor.” They will come out to your yard and pick up your dog’s crap. Ah, the sweet smell of success.

I can see what a problem it would be to look after your own dog. Some of those piles weigh literally ounces. And, there might be more than one a day. You have little choice but to pay outside specialists.

If we can afford the dog crap (applies to all the above), how bad could things be?