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Funny Business
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A friend says the first thing she looks at in the newspaper is the comics. It's less depressing than the rest of the paper. But you can't escape reality even in the funny pages. Here's a link to yesterday's "Cathy".
In the strip, Cathy doesn't want to spend money to buy something in a clothing store. The saleswoman tells Cathy that if she doesn't buy anything, the store will lose money, which means the saleswoman will lose money, which means the saleswoman will spend less money, which will hurt restaurants and shops, "and on and on and on". When Cathy finally gives in, "OK, I'LL TAKE IT!!" The saleswoman thinks to herself, "New for Spring '09: Haute Guilt".
Meantime, the Kansas City Star reports a government decision may kill 300 American jobs making...condoms. The U.S. Agency for International Development may now buy Chinese condoms to send across the world to help prevent AIDS. The Chinese condoms cost much less than their American counterparts—two cents versus five cents. But USAID also says the Alabama plant making the condoms, Alatech, has had delivery problems in the past (which Alatech says have been resolved). The governmental agency also says some countries didn't like the Alatech condoms because they weren't thin enough. "We pay taxes down here, too," says Fannie Thomas, who has been making condoms at Alatech for 40 years ("Grandma, what do you do for a living?"). "With all this stimulus money going to save jobs," Thomas says, "it seems to me like they (the U.S. government) should share this contract so they can save jobs here in America."
In that vein...
There's at least one growth industry in this down economy: vasectomies. HealthDay reports that many doctors have seen a sharp increase in the number of men wanting the procedure, and many patients are coming from "the beleaguered financial industry." Dr. Marc Goldstein at the Cornell Institute for Reproductive Medicine says his vasectomy business is up 48 percent from a year ago, with nearly half his patients from Wall Street—more than a third coming in since the September failure of Lehman Brothers. Dr. Stephen Jones at the Cleveland Clinic has seen requests for vasectomies skyrocketing 75 percent since late November. Doctors speculate the jump in vasectomies has two motives: men don't want to have kids when they're unsure about their finances, or men want a vasectomy while they still have medical benefits.
I suggest a third reason: fear that thin Chinese condoms will take over the market.
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