Depression Not So Great

New York, NY -- Last Friday's stock market near-crash sent waves of intestinal cramps rippling through the world's investment community.

With the Dow Jones Industrial Average having lost more value than at any time post-1929 and reaching its lowest point in the past 22 months, the current financial crisis is taking a psychological and emotional toll on jittery investors.

"I used to think my trading experience and insider knowledge would give me the edge when it came time to set up my own retirement fund," said Wall Street commodities broker Simon Kaplan. "Now I might have to break the lease on my 7-Series BMW. I'm very depressed."

Ever-increasing food and fuel prices, the stagnant housing sector, a glut of Louis Vuitton knockoffs, and chronic Zoloft shortages have combined to exacerbate the public's loss of confidence. In addition, cable television prices have more than tripled since the end of World War II.

General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler announced the imminent closing of factories that produce currently unfashionable trucks and SUVs; the resultant job losses are already creating widespread depression throughout the soon-to-be-idle workforce.

"I guess it started when we began building the truck-assembly robots that ended up replacing us," said laid off GM automotive engineer Dale Gary Francis of Moraine, OH. "We should have built new robots that would buy the trucks, too. It's depressing when you think about it."

Unless action is taken to prevent the flushing of America's depressed economy, and soon, there will be no one left to jiggle the handle.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is unlikely to adjust interest rates before the outcome of this November's presidential election, and the presumed candidates are already trumpeting their solutions to the dilemma.

Democratic Senator Barack Obama is feverishly tweaking centrist fiduciary policies that will ultimately disappoint and disgust his most extreme far-left liberal supporters, while GOP Senator John McCain is scrambling to separate himself ideologically from President Bush while still appealing to the Republican Party's traditional base of arch-conservatives, fundamentalist Christians, and Dittoheads.

Economists warn that the United States is on the brink of another Great Depression—a large hollow place into which people threw money, in the misguided hope it would eventually fill up and overflow.

"I'm not dumb enough to panic and climb into some kind of great big pit like that," said broker Kaplan. "I'll just stay in my office and keep jacking up the price of petroleum futures."