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Time to clamber into our trusty time machines and to jump eighteen months into the future – to September 17, 2009.
In his first eight months in office, President Barack Hussein Obama Jr. is presiding over the greatest economic, financial and social catastrophe in U.S. history.
But it’s not his fault. Not entirely, anyway …
As he and his spinmeisters incessantly point out, the credit meltdown that caused this mess was his predecessor’s doing.
Sure – the Obama/Rangel/Kennedy tax increases on “the rich” (everyone making more than $100,000 a year) and their talk of doubling of the capital gains tax crashed the stock market and triggered the greatest explosion in unemployment since the Great Depression.
And yes, the Keynesian economic advisors who assured him he could print all the money he wanted – use counterfeit paper dollars to pay the government’s bills and to bail out failing banks and other corporations – were idiots. The fact that it now takes a wheelbarrow full of paper dollars to buy a loaf of bread makes that little factoid as plain as the nose on your face.
But it was “those dirty Republicans” who created the real estate bubble and credit crisis with their historically low interest rates and their failure to regulate abusive lending practices.
And so, with his right hand on a stack of Bibles and his left hand to God, President Obama is about to go on TV to swear – once again – that his next volley of equally idiotic economic measures really will solve the crisis once and for all.
Of course, stupid people will believe him. But not you. Because you know better.
You know that government doesn’t solve problems; it creates them. You know that nobody in Washington really gives a flying fig whether you get rich or starve. You know that if anybody is going to improve your lot in life, it’ll have to be you.
And most of all, you know that every crisis spins off more opportunities than an F-6 tornado spins off cows.
And now, with millions fearing they’ll be the next to lose their jobs … with millions more on unemployment … with millions more simply giving up on ever again finding gainful employment … and with the purchasing power of what little money folks have left going up in smoke …
You, my friend, are making money hand over fist.
Because ‘way back on March 17, 2008, you read an article in The Total Package that suggested that at a time like this, smart people may hope for the best … but they prepare for the worst.
And while your competitors were burying their heads in the sand, you were using your head to a much better purpose: To think ahead.
So were thousands of other smart people who read that article.
Copywriters were carefully targeting the kinds of clients that tend to do very, very well in times like these: Companies that sell gold and silver coins and bullion … companies that purchase distressed personal property and re-sell it at a tidy profit … companies that help unemployed people make a good living working for themselves.
And business owners were taking a long hard look at their product lines … their prices … their offers … and making strategic changes designed to stand them in good stead even if the worst scenario – a recession and scorching inflation – became reality.
Back from the future
So here we are, back to March 17, 2008. Wow … was that some whirlwind trip, or what?
A flight of fantasy? A Chicken Little, sky-is-falling, worst case scenario?
Sure. Maybe. Whatever.
But think about this: Less than one year ago – in May of 2007 – the chief of the US Federal Reserve told the world that the subprime crisis would be contained. It would not reach beyond the lowest end of the real estate market and a handful of lenders.
Last Friday, that same Fed chairman – Ben S. Bernanke – announced he would create 200 billion dollars out of thin air to lend to troubled banks this month alone, including a $30 billion bail-out of Bear Sterns – one of America’s largest and most venerable financial institutions.
On Sunday, he slashed the discount rate, making it cheaper for banks to borrow money to stay afloat. And tomorrow, he’s set to cut the Fed Funds rate by (some say) between three-quarters of one percent and a full percentage point.
Why? Because this crisis is far more dangerous than anyone in Washington is willing to admit.
The simple truth is assurances and calls for calm by Bush, Bernanke and most of Wall Street’s talking heads have been 100% wrong. And there can only be one of two explanations for their staggering inaccuracy: Either they are too ignorant and incompetent to see the reality of this situation or they are fully aware and lying their asses off.
An obscure, academic, meaningless distinction?
No way. Investors who believed the politicians and bureaucrats and held on to their Bear Sterns stock lost 90% of their money in the past seven days.
Meanwhile, investors who ignored Washington’s buffoons and dissemblers … who bet that everything politicians and bureaucrats said was drivel … and who bought gold, silver and other things that have intrinsic value … have doubled, tripled, even quadrupled their money.
What’s that you say? You’re not an investor? You’re a copywriter?
Fine – so let me ask you: Who would you rather be right now: A copywriter whose major client is a coin and bullion company doing a land office business as investors rush to protect their money from inflation? Or one who until recently was making a killing writing those TV spots for Countrywide Financial?
Dumb question – right?
Huh? What? You’re not a copywriter either? You’re an entrepreneur? A business owner? OK – so what’s going to happen to you as the recession that has already bankrupted hundreds of real estate developers … construction companies … lenders … and that is now driving consumer confidence down to its lowest levels ever … comes to YOUR doorstep?
Wouldn’t calling a meeting to brainstorm a raft of new products specifically designed to make you richer than Midas in this new environment make a heckuva lot of sense right now? Or failing that, finding a “greater fool” to take your company off your hands while it’s still worth something?
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