Brother, Can You Spare A Five? No, I Mean A REAL Five

Despite Vice President's Cheney's recent assertion that the U.S. economy is merely going through a "rough patch," most Americans will tell you that it's already in the shithole and getting worse. When hundreds of thousands of people have already lost--or are on the verge of losing--their homes, saying we're going through a rough patch is like the Captain of the Titanic declaring that the ship has sprung a wee bit of a leak.

There seems to be little consensus over what caused the mess. Sure, the sub-prime loan mess is part of it, but that only mushroomed after the rest of the economy had begun to slow. Some Americans blame the Iraq war, or the rising cost of oil, or excessive deficits by the Federal government, or out of control health care costs, or the plummeting valaue of the dollar as compared to other currencies, or the NAFTA treaty, or illegal immigrants.

The truth of the matter is that it's none of that. The real problem, folks, is the new design of the five dollar bill. Have you seen this thing? It's got a big ass PURPLE "5" on the back. I ask you: Who the hell uses purple on their money? Purple is the color for friendly dinosaurs or gay teletubbies. It is most certainly NOT the color for a (formerly) respected currency of international trade.

All of our economic woes can be traced to the new five dollar bill. If you think about it, things really started going downhill when the bill was redesigned. Coincidence? Not at all. The truth of the matter that no nation on Earth wants to deal with a country that uses Monopoly® money for its transactions.

Hell, even Park Place with a hotel is worth a fraction of what it would have sold for a year ago.