It is the best of times (Obama won!) and it is the worst of times (pretty much everything else). It is the age of wisdom (again, go Obama), it is the age of foolishness (sub-prime mortgages, Iraq, the Big 3 automakers, Sarah Palin, etc.). So now, as we enter our winter of despair - month 12 of the recession and counting! - can we look forward to a spring of hope? Yes, yes we can. We just need some creative solutions, and I have one straight out of Dickens.
Obviously, there are a number of problems facing our nation today. With the economy tanking, families are running short on cash and are consequently racking up huge amounts of debt they can't foreseeably pay off. At the same time, America is losing its competitive edge in the world marketplace - due in no small part to the abysmal state of education and the indolence of the nation's youth. So pathetic is the state of education that schools are now resorting to flat-out bribery to increase grades and test scores: DC Public Schools are now offering cash bonuses for better grades; Baylor University is offering scholarship money for matriculated students to retake the SATs.
Thus, as our middle class falls into ever more dire financial straits and our future workforce falls ever further behind its peers, it becomes clear that we must take action. "But what can we do?" you ask.
Repeal child labor laws.
It's perfect. Now, I'm not suggesting that we pull kids out of school and stick them in factories. Rather, just take the underperformers and troublemakers and put them in the factories. Such a policy has a number of clear advantages.
First, it incentivizes academic performance. I don't want my tax dollars going to some little shit-for-brains that has to get paid to get A's. If kids don't want good grades for the sheer merit of having good grades, well, academia just isn't for them. But if they want to get paid for their work, they should produce something worth getting paid for. Like automobiles. Under my plan, no child will be left behind, but a goodly number of them will be working sheet metal presses in Detroit.
That brings me to the second part of my plan - we'll fix the auto industry. No need for an expensive bailout when we can simply slash production costs. Detroit keeps whingeing about the expense of its labor force - the high hourly wages, the cost of health insurance and pension benefits, whine, whine, whine. "It adds $2000 to the price of every car," they complain, and with that kind of overhead, they can't compete with foreign manufacturers. Simple solution - we'll use child labor to build our cars.
Kids don't need health insurance - they'll be covered under Mummy and Daddy's plan. They don't need a high wage because they're just kids - no families to support. And they don't need pension benefits because once we eliminate occupational safety regulations, they won't live that long.
Furthermore, children have extraordinary manual dexterity, what with all that video game playing. Their little fingers can reach into the smallest of places. But rather than replacing Victorian-era bobbins, they'll be installing 21st Century brake lines. Thus, we can replace all those expensive robots that Detroit uses with 5-7 year-olds. This will further slash overhead - no robot maintenance costs, and, heck, they'll barely need electricity. Give each tot a miner's helmet with a light on it, and you don't even need to light the factory floor. That's thousands of dollars a month in energy savings alone.
Finally, this plan will save the environment. With all these kids going to work, parents don't need giant SUVs to shuttle Madison and Adrian to soccer practice and ballet. Mom and Dad can buy smaller, more fuel-efficient cars with lower emissions. They might even get a family discount if they buy from their kids' company.
I don't think such a modest proposal can fail, can it? Merry Christmas, every one! The end.
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