Mr. Obama and the Case of the Unsolvable Math Problem

Mr. Obama and the Case of the Unsolvable Math Problem

Once in a great while, a generation is witness to greatness. From achievements in sports, medicine, even space travel, few are privileged to see true greatness in its natural state. Imagine being Albert Einstein’s first wife, Mileva, who watched as his exceptional mind gave birth to his theory of relativity.

Imagine being the apple that fell on Sir Isaac Newton’s head, giving rise to modern physics.

Imagine watching that lunatic Galileo dropping rocks and fruits from the top of that leaning tower in Pisa.

Well, imagine no farther. We need not look to the past for inspiration. Our generation has been given front-row seats to watch greatness emerge again – this time, from President-elect Barack Obama, who faces the greatest puzzler of all time. According to him, he will solve a $10 trillion national debt by increasing government spending and cutting taxes on everyone earning less than $250,000 per year.

Mathematically speaking, this is the Indian rope trick. A rope not only mysteriously stands up with sufficient rigidity that a magician can climb it but, after being pulled up after him, disappears into thin air.

President-elect Obama and his Democratic colleagues believe they can right the mistakes of the previous administration which, due to two wars, a monumental terrorist attack and a worldwide economic crisis, has left the national budget in a shambles. Better yet, they think spending more and earning less can magically create 5 million new jobs.

I’m no math whiz, but the only way I can see coming up with that many new jobs is in paying people to try to decipher the Obama team’s weird new math. In fact, the only mathematician who could possibly make this work died 59 years ago this month. His name was Charles Ponzi, for whom the “Ponzi scheme” is named.

History is littered with examples of governments relying on hare-brained financial innovations to solve their problems. Even now, after thousands of years, ancient Egypt remains littered with pyramid schemes.

Let the record show I am a team player. If America needs help, who am I to stand in the President-elect’s way? When the nation needs me, I will always stand and deliver.

Our top priority must be to create jobs. A working man is a happy man, and history shows that all the rabble-rousers and seditionists were unemployed and not happy about it. So, I would like to think President-elect Obama will consider having the government take over Amway, and let unemployed folks sell soap. It sounds unorthodox, I’ll grant you – but all they really need to do is convince you and two of your friends to sell soap for them, and so on, and so on. Pretty soon, we’re all fat and happy and smelling like soap. From sea to shining sea, Americans will never have been so clean. It will be America’s finest hour.

On the other hand, to reduce the gargantuan national debt, we must consider radical solutions. I recommend selling North Dakota to Canada. No one really uses it anyway, and I’m pretty sure no one even lives there. In many ways, North Dakota is America’s attic – and, thanks to the exchange rate, we’ll get a better bang for our buck selling to Canada than if we were to sell it to some European nation. It helps that Canadians speak our language, making their transition to our way of life a little easier. Welcome to the U.S., eh!

Necessity is the mother of invention, they say, and my suggestions are proof that tough times breed greatness. I look forward to helping the new President-elect solve the nation’s problems, and I hope you do too.

If you have no ideas, don’t worry. You can be in charge of the soap.