Friday Funny: Building the Nation Out of the Crisis

This piece from The Onion presents the incredibly simple solution to the nation's economic troubles: build more houses.

1 minute read

April 3, 2009, 2:00 PM PDT

By Nate Berg


"That's it. It's so obvious, maybe that's why I'm the first one to come up with it. Houses got us into this mess, and by God, it's houses that are going to get us out!"

"Think about it. We've got thousands of tradesmen out of work 'cause no one is building houses. Plumbers, guys who do drywall, the like-none of them have a job to go to in the morning. If the carpenters don't have jobs, then they aren't buying any lumber. Then the lumber guys don't have any money to buy dresses for their gals, and the dressmakers can't buy cars, and so on down the line."

"You see? They need jobs, pronto, otherwise we're going to be sitting on a load of lumber and dresses and cars. So I say, give 'em some houses to build! Then they'd have some money to spread around, and the economy wouldn't be so bad."

"Problem solved."

Thursday, April 2, 2009 in The Onion

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

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