Time Warp

The Agenda’s invaluable reader and researcher, Chad, dug up this old email I sent out on October 6, 2006, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit an all-time record high. I’m reprinting it here for no reason other than that it’s kind of fun considering everything that’s happened since then:

Today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at its
highest level ever, breaking a record set in January
of the year 2000. As many of you may know, I monitor
the stock market closely each day. As many of you may
also know, “monitor the stock market closely” means
that I spend most of my time swimming in large gold
coins and laughing at the homeless, periodically
coming up for air, or to send ridiculous e-mails, or
to pee. As I’m sure you’re aware, the prophecy states
that when the Dow finally closes at a record high this
will usher in the End of Days, during which the gates
of Hell will open and we will be consumed by the fire
breathed by eleven giant dragons. This is, of course,
absurd. We would almost certainly be eaten by the
Hell dragons long before they would ever consider
burning us to death. Anyway, we had a good run.

But this is hardly the point. The point is the song
I’ve attached. The previous record high on the Dow
was set just before the dot-com crash, during which
many fake millionaires discovered they probably should
have gone ahead and sold that start-up to CNN for $10
million, and they subsequently turned into the
homeless people I referenced earlier. Whatever.
That’s what the song is about, and I think it’s funny.
And the guy who sings it sometimes stops into Wichita
and plays a gig or two at Kirby’s so check him out if
you happen to be here at the same time he is. He’s a
hippie, but I don’t mind. I know some of you aren’t
fond of hippies.

So, now that the Dow has hit a new high, will we see a
crash like we did when the dot-com bubble burst? We
can hope. For then, those capitalist pigs would
finally get what they have coming to them. Vive la
revolution! Redistribution of wealth and whatnot.
Pat, your dreams of a free-market utopia are dying,
we’re coming for you!

Ethan Daniel Davidson– Talking San Francisco Dot-Com Kid Massacre

Obviously, the Dow went a whole helluva lot higher before it all came crashing down, although you’d have been in a lot better shape dumping it before those Hell dragons came calling. And by “Hell dragons” I mean “Alan Greenspan and his merry band of deregulators.” Greenspan’s reaction? “Shocked disbelief.”