Past April Fool's Editions

JOURNAL OF THE DEPRESSION

The following is an on-going series about one person's struggle through the economic collapse:

Our April Fool's tradition is the print the stories we wish were true,,,,

FEDERAL RESERVE SENDS CHECK FOR $30,000 TO EVERY AMERICAN TAXPAYER

Washington: Heeding the advice of The Frumious Bandersnatch, the Federal Reserve today announced that it was sending a check for $30,000 to each and every individual or couple taxpayer in America.

"The cost of this program will be $3 trillion," said a spokesman for the Federal Reserve, "which is about what we've spent bailing out banks."

There will be no restrictions on what people can do with their $30,000 check.

"People could buy stock, put it savings, buy a new car, pay off their credit car debt, pay medical bills, pay for their kid's college tuition, whatever," said the Federal Reserve.

"One thing for sure, is a lot of money will go into immediate circulation in the country helping to jump start the economy," the Federal Reserve added.

Single taxpayers would get $30,000 and married couple would et $60,000 under the plan.

No payments would be made to anyone earning over $250,000 in taxable income in 2008, and no payments would be made to C corporations. Payments would be made to S corporations. 

Joe Sam, Statutory Agent and Foreign Correspondent for the Bandersnatch was guardedly optimistic about the potential payment. "I realize we're going to have to pay this all back in higher taxes in the future, but this ought to set off a wave of inflation making the effective cost about one-half what it would be today.

TALIBAN SURRENDER, DISAVOWS ISLAMIC EXTREMISM

Kabul: The Taliban, in a sudden reversal of policy, disavowed their extreme version of Islam and laid down their weapons.

"We finally found someone who could actually read the Koran, and discovered we were being fed a pile of crap from the advisors we had," said a spokesman for the Taliban.

The Taliban plan to work to rebuild Afghanistan into a modern, prosperous country complete with education for their women.

HAMAS AND FATAH MAKE UP, UNIFY PALESTINE

RECOGINIZE ISRAEL'S RIGHT TO EXIST

Gaza: After weeks of negotiations, Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a coalition government to rule Palestine. As part of that agreement, Hamas has accepted the right of Israel to exist.

"There are some conditions for this," said a spokesman for Fatah.

"They include Israel removing all their settlements on the West Bank and turning the entire West Bank over to Palestinian control, open borders between Israel and Palestine, removal of all the Israeli walls, and allowing all displaced Palestinians living in other countries the right of return to Palestine.

In exchange, the Palestinians will quit firing rockets into Israel.

Israeli officials were silent in response to the proposal. West Bank settlers were furious at the prospect of being evicted from their settlements and vowed to topple any Israeli government that agreed to the Palestinian proposal.

"We just want to keep the war going forever," said a settler.

IRAN GIVES UP NUKE PROGRAM

Tehran: In a move that caught the US by surprise, Iran has decided to drop its nuclear weapons development program and open up the country to Un inspection.

Peaceful development of nuclear electric generation till continue, the Iranians announced, subject to full inspection.

"With oil selling for such low prices, we can't afford the cost of developing nuclear weapons," said a spokesman for the Iranian government.

"Anyway, we don't need nukes to export to terrorist groups to keep the world in a state of fear," the spokesman added. "We can make lots of smaller bombs for roadside attacks."

MEXICO CRUSHES DRUG CARTELS

Mexico City: In a series of midnight raids, the Mexican Army rounded up thousands of drug cartel officials, tried them, and executed them.

Billions of dollars in foreign currency was sized in the raids, along with billions worth of drugs. 

"The amount of money we seized ought to keep the federal government operating for several years," said a Mexican federal official.

The swift move to eradicate the drug cartels caught many by surprise, especially the cartel members who thought they had bought or terrorized the Mexican government into looking the other way.

What finally prompted the Mexican government to quit blaming the US drug demand and weapons supply for the drug cartel problem was the damage the cartels' drug wars were doing to the Mexican tourist economy.

"Spring Break was an economic disaster with people afraid to come to Mexico," said a government official. "These drug thugs were so busy protecting their own petty interests that they didn't realize they were destroying our country."

From here on out, anyone caught in Mexico possessing drugs, selling drugs, laundering money, taking bribes from, the drug cartels, selling or smuggling guns, or possessing an automatic weapon will be executed within 24 hours.

"We will leave it to the United States to deal with the problem of millions of drug addicts whose supply of Mexican drugs has been eliminated," said the Mexican official.

US LEGALIZES MEXICAN WORKERS OPENS GATES TO WORKER IMMIGRATION

Washington: Within minutes of Mexico's announcement that a crackdown had been made on Mexican drug cartels, the US Congress passed legislation allowing all existing Mexican illegal residents to pay $5,000 and apply for either a work permit or a citizenship track.

"If they want to become citizens, they will have to learn English," said Senator Fred Freebush, (D) Baja Arizona.

Temporary workers would be allowed into the US for one year upon payment of a $2,000 work permit fee. The work permits could be renewed annually for another $2,000 a year fee. Permitted workers would have to check in at least once a month with a federal immigration office to verify where thy live. Permitted workers would be allowed driver's licenses, but not be eligible for US Social Security benefits. Payments made by the workers to US Social Security would be used to fund the deficit in Social Security to protect Americans.

'This way, anyone caught sneaking across the border would be presumed to be a drug smuggler or a terrorist, and we'll authorize the Border Patrol to shoot them on sight," said Freebush.

OFF SHORE OIL AND GAS DEPOSITS OFFERED FOR SALE

Washington: In response to Republican demand for more offer shore drilling, Democrats today introduced legislation selling off shore oil and gas deposits on the US Continental Shelf at auction.

"The minimum bid price with be $6 trillion, to pay back all the money we pissed away to banks," said Senator Fred Freebush (D) Baja Arizona.

Environmentalists were furious at the proposal, which would flood the US with cheap petroleum products that don't come from foreign sources.

"This will set back the growth of renewable energy development at least 5 years," said a spokesman for People Living Primitively.

Arab oil producing countries immediately bashed the US proposal, since this would reduce the sales of their oil and drive down oil prices world wide, cutting funding to support anti-American terrorist activities.

US BAN IMPORTS FROM CHINA AND EXPORTATION OF US JOBS TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES

Washington: To protect US workers, President Barak Obama launched an effort to ban imports from China, and to prevent any more US jobs from be outsourced to other countries.

"I think what pushed us over the edge was a bank using a call center in Indian calling delinquent credit card customers in the US dunning them for payments," Obama said. "If the call center job had been in the US, then a US citizen would at east be making money to pay his bills."

Other nations immediately declared a trade war against the US, raising duties and banning imports of everything from corn and beef to automobiles to their countries.

"That's cool," said a spokesman for the US Trade Office. "We aren't going to send them computers, airplanes, weapons, and a whole bunch of our stuff they just use to attack us with."

China responded by dumping all the US securities it owns into the market, which the US quickly bought up for pennies on the dollar. 

"We're probably going to make enough reselling the junk debt we sold to China to pay off our national debt," said a spokesman for the US Treasury.

Americans will have to quickly get used to a shortage of many goods now made in China until domestic production can be ramped up. The stuff will obviously cost more, as well.

"The upside of this is that the stuff will be made in the US and our folks will have jobs and can afford to buy the stuff," said a spokesman for the Trade Office.

Officials at Wal Mart were not available for comment as they contemplated stores with empty shelves in a few months as all their Chinese-made products disappear.

US AUTO MAKER UNVEILS CAR THAT GETS 100 MILES TO THE GALLON

Detroit: Confirming the suspicion that the US auto industry had the technology to build a car that got 100 miles per gallon but were suppressing it, Ford today rolled out a whole line of cars and trucks that get at least 100 miles per gallon.

The new super fuel efficient cars and trucks will be in showrooms by April 1, 2010.

Ford also requested that a $10,000 tax credit be enacted for any US made car or truck that gets 100 miles per gallon.

"That ought to jump start the auto industry," a spokesman for Ford allowed.

GM and Chrysler reportedly also have 100 mpg cars waiting in the wings, but are hesitating to announce them until the terms of their federal bailout deals are finalized. GM and Chrysler want the US government to buy out all existing vehicles in the country to remove them from the road and the market.

"If we got rid of every unsafe, fuel guzzling, air pollution car and truck in the country, we'd vastly improve our air, reduce oil demand, and save 40,000 lives a year," said a spokesman for GM.

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