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A heartbroken teenager absorbs the news that his growth rate is slowing and may soon stop altogether. Given his bleak prospects, thoughts of suicide cannot be ruled out. (Photo by bngdesigns/pixabay)
A mysterious affliction that is affecting human growth rates has apparently spread unnoticed around the world. “We are seeing normal growth rates of three or so inches a year decline, over the space of a few years, to a half inch or even less,” said one scientist who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to take the blame. “For some reason it seems to be affecting young people, in their late teens.”
“Growth is essential to the economy,” said an economist who preferred not to be identified because he’s tired of all the ridicule. “The clothing industry depends on it, as does the basketball industry, just to name two. The effect on them is likely to be catastrophic.” Within hours of this story breaking, the prices of cotton futures and basketball tickets fell precipitously, causing the Federal Reserve to buy thousands of cotton bales and stadium seats to stabilize the markets.
A 19-year-old medical researcher with intimate knowledge of the pandemic said that not only are people in their late teens and early 20s increasingly failing to meet growth expectations, but some elderly people are actually being found to experience negative growth. He did not want to be identified because of the stigma attached to growth loss, which he described as “horrible, unnatural.”
No cause for the pandemic has been identified, but one food industry executive, who declined to be identified because of death threats, said preliminary research in corporate labs indicates that the culprit could be consumption of organic vegetables. “The results are preliminary,” he said, “but convincing.”
Bishop Arley Smothers, founder of the Church of the Chosen Few (its membership is limited to billionaires) asked the nation to pray for the corporations deprived of the revenues from people who stop growing. “It’s just awful,” he said, “these companies are suffering. The economy is going to stagnate, and we must pray for perpetual growth, like God intended.”
Congress went to work on a fast-track bill to compensate corporations for “any and all” revenue losses because of “failure to grow.” House speaker John Boehner called the crisis “just another failure of the Obama administration.” Asked if they were going to provide any aid for small people who failed to reach their full potential, one Congressman (who asked not to be identified lest his constituents find out where he is) replied, “Of course not. That would be an entitlement, and would increase the national debt.”
A prominent research lab announced it is making progress on a cure for growth loss, with a combination of stem cells, steroids, spliced genes, Agent Orange and spider venom. Initial testing has already started, and if some of the patients survive, the company expects to begin marketing next week. “This is serious,” said a corporate VP for public relations who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to be in the building, “but it’s nothing that good old American ingenuity can’t deal with.”
I’m lucky – I’m 6’5 already at 78 yrs.
Funny! Laughed my head off.
That’s great Mr. Lewis! You could follow it with an ad for
The Church of Euthanasia http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/
The One Commandment:
“Thou shalt not procreate”
The Four Pillars:
suicide · abortion
cannibalism · sodomy
Here’s that ad i was talking about a few threads back. Though i don’t have the tech skills to do a “screen grab” i’ll just describe the entire little ad.
It’s about an inch wide by about 6 inches high, has a picture of a drilling rig that looks like a giant rock hammer attached like a see-saw with a blue sky over a green hillside with a few trees in the background and contains the following text:
Invest in Oil and Gas Drilling (in all caps)
Investment Benefits (italic and all caps)
Minimized Risk
Unique Tax Advantages
Cash Flow Paid Monthly
Diversify Your Portfolio
Replenishing Assets
Click Here To (all caps)
Invest Today! (Much larger type, more than twice as big as all the rest)
Patriot Energy (with their blue white and red gas flame logo with a white star in the blue)
Is that not one giant crock of lies? Who is their focus group, senile old people with scads of cash? People with an IQ equal to their shoe size? How gullible are people anymore? If the entire economy is falling apart because the middle class is now tapped out, who are they aiming at? It’s laughable to me.
related (somewhat):
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/05/when-the-herd-turns.html
When the Herd Turns
Once market participants realize the top is in and the only possible result from here on is a loss, the herd will turn and follow the leaders who are selling.
A funny thing happens when the stock market herd turns–all the usual central bank tricks no longer push the markets higher. [read the rest of the short article]
Did you see this Mr. Lewis:
NASA records enormous burst of plasma erupting from the sun
http://www.sott.net/article/296036-NASA-records-enormous-burst-of-plasma-erupting-from-the-sun
[quote]
This particular filament is unusually large, spanning millions of kilometers. The phenomenon was observable for a span of about six hours (the video has been sped up, but you can see the time stamp at the bottom). It did not erupt in the Earth’s direction and poses no danger to the planet or spacecraft in its orbit.
[what if it was in our direction?]
and, more topically
Experts Are Warning That The 76 Trillion Dollar Global Bond Bubble Is About To Explode
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/experts-are-warning-that-the-76-trillion-dollar-global-bond-bubble-is-about-to-explode
[ends]
Where we are right now is at the end of the party. There are some that want to keep on dancing to the music for as long as possible, but most can see that things are winding down and people are starting to head for the exits.
The irrational global financial bubble that investors have been enjoying for the past few years has stretched on far longer than it should have. But that is the way irrational bubbles work – they just keep going even when everyone can see that they have become absolutely absurd. However, eventually something always comes along and bursts them, and once that happens markets can crash very, very rapidly.