posted on December 27, 2002 11:32:52 AM
I always love reading Dave Barry's take on life.
Q. What is the FTOB?
A. It is a secret, quasi-governmental body whose mission is to convince consumers that they need to buy things to replace perfectly good things that they already own. The FTOB got us out of the recession of the early 1980s by promoting the compact disc; this caused Americans to buy CD versions of all their record albums, spending, according to the Department of Commerce, $117 billion on Fleetwood Mac alone. The FTOB is currently stimulating the economy with a bold three-pronged program designed to convince consumers that they must: (1) replace all their CDs with something called ''MP3''; (2) replace their VCR machines, and all their videotapes, with something called ''DVD''; and (3) replace their film cameras with ''digital'' cameras, which consumers believe are technologically superior, despite the fact that only 3 percent of all consumers can figure out how to get the pictures out of the camera, which means most people show you their vacation shots of the Grand Canyon by making you squint at the little screen on the back of the camera, which is the size of a Cheez-It. The entire U.S. economy is now based on consumers buying these things. Ski resorts will soon be built on mountains made entirely from discarded, but fully functional, VCRs.
Yes, DeSquirrel will certainly bookmark this post for the next time to tell me about how I post conspiracy theories. Linda won't bother to bookmark it, but will refer to it a year from now.
