Opinion Front: It’s a werewolf, stupid

President Barack Obama says there isn’t a magic bullet to fix the economy — meaning the economy isn’t just some supernatural beast.

The president fails to understand that the American economy is about as stable as mystical beasts are real. You see, the economy is kind of like a werewolf. It’s human at heart and rational in the long run, but it has these bouts of unintelligible rage with a self-destructive nature when it gets all primal.

During the downswing of the business cycle, it loses all sophistication by listening to financial advice from MC Hammer and buying up gold reserves. People who don’t understand the mystical and unscientific nature of economics would have you think we need less intrusive government regulations, and we need to gut the hell out of taxes to kill the beast. However, loosening up on government regulations will make its moonlight rampages worse.

Lower taxes mean we won’t be able to support the families the economy will destroy after it ravages Main Street. Let me suggest an alternative.

Economists always talk about making markets more efficient. Liquidity helps you make better, faster decisions. Consider how hard it is to find a job. It involves going outside and going business to business, looking for an open spot. What if there was a job database that had all the available jobs in America? Think of Monster.com, but extremely simplified and intuitive. If you want a job you just log onto the network, and you will see all of the available public and private sector jobs everywhere in your city, across the state — even on the other side of the nation. This way, looking for jobs will be incredibly easy, and you won’t be subject to a random attack from the markets.

What we also need to consider is what makes the economy become an irrational beast — uncertainty. Fortunately, stockholders are easily swayed by expensive ad campaigns. The shinier and rosier it is, the better. Think about how much fun a dog has when you throw a brightly colored Nerf ball. What we need is some dystopian-style propaganda to distract the wolf.

I understand propaganda carries a negative connotation; however, we can easily spin it as “marketing.” What we need right now are Kelley School of Business marketing majors to get into public service. School of Public and Environmental Affairs students have obviously failed us so far. They have an unnecessary sense of ethics.

The only other silver bullet I can think of is to blow up the moon. But I’ve been told that’s not environmentally sound. The Environmental Protection Agency is such a drag.

­— nicjacob@indiana.edu