ALL COMEDY IS CONSERVATIVE (via ED DRISCOLL)

Remains Of Ancient Race Of Job Creators Found In Rust Belt (The Onion, October 31, 2011)

A team of leading archaeologists announced Monday they had uncovered the remains of an ancient job-creating race that, at the peak of its civilization, may have provided occupations for hundreds of thousands of humans in the American Northeast and Midwest.

According to researchers, these long- forgotten people once flourished between western New York state and Illinois, erecting highly distinctive steel and brick structures wherever they went, including many buildings thought to have held hundreds of paid workers at a time.

"It's truly fascinating--after spending a certain number of hours performing assigned tasks, the so-called 'employees' at such facilities would receive monetary compensation that allowed them to support themselves and their families," said archaeologist Alan H. Mueller, citing old ledgers and time-keeping devices unearthed at excavation sites in the region. "In fact, this practice seems to have been the norm for their culture, which consisted of advanced tool users capable of exploiting their skills to produce highly valued goods and services."

"It's a complex and intriguing set of rituals we're still trying to fully understand," Mueller added. "But it appears as if their entire society was centered around creating, out of thin air, actual jobs that paid an actual living wage."

What's funny here is not the jibe, but the lack of comprehension it reveals.  Not that the core assumption is that an economy's purpose is to create jobs.  Indeed, the manner or substance (or the lack of said) of the job is completely beside the point, any "assigned task" is considered sufficient.  Goods and services are secondary, an afterthought at best. 

This misapprehension would be funnier were it not so common, so persistent, and so damaging. 



Posted by oj at November 5, 2011 4:58 PM
Tweet   

Follow @brothersjudd