Sell! And Save the Economy! —DeWese

THIS BAD economy thing has made me mad. Rip roarin’, snortin’, fire dirt kickin’ mad. I’m afraid to call it a recession. No two economists can agree on what it is.

Whatever it is, it’s lousy. It’s causing deep, dark depression to pervade the land.

Depression among Americans is up 113 percent this year, according to several sources. Antidepressant sales are up 156 percent, according to still other sources. So, that’s great for the pharmaceutical companies. When the economy turned South, sales of the new impotence pills probably tanked, so thank goodness here come the orders for antidepressants.

Of course, the oil-producing sheikhs and the oil companies are not depressed. I won’t name names, but the oil companies’ earnings are breaking records, and the producers are awash in solid gold palaces and platinum Rolls Royces and, ’er, diamond-crested Ferraris.

People who have to drive anywhere, like work, are paying around $4 per gallon; their expendable income is down 18 percent, and their depression is up 142 percent. Another real big hurtin’ is on the airlines and the truckers. They are either going bankrupt, already bankrupt, or cutting employees and routes. Depression among their executives is up 198 percent, and some are known to lunch on their feel-good pills washed down with martinis.

Home foreclosures are way up over 100 percent. Credit card debt and delinquencies have created a whole new industry for offshore entrepreneurs, as the banks farm out their dunning phone calls. This credit card problem has helped variable data digital printers due to the increased mailing of past due notices, but it hurt direct mail printers that were living off new credit card solicitations.

The banks made many, many bad bets and then doubled down, and now their earnings are lost in an ocean of red ink. Don’t be thinkin’ you can get a loan now with anything less than gilt-edged credit and 100 percent collateral. This, of course, leads to more depression and more antidepressants.