Dierkes DeLiberated: Restarting our economic heart

America is suffering from a financial situation that cannot be described without the use of profanities or contractions. Our current economic model seems more based on selling the cheapest bits of crap at the highest price, and yet our policy advisors were surprised when a national economy fueled by chicanery collapsed on itself. We need new ideas to drive our country into the future, and what are we getting out of Washington? Tax cuts, government spending, selling our debt to foreign nations, and other traditional methods of incompetence. So here are my simple proposals for putting the jumper cables to the engine of our nation's gross domestic product.

-New American Diet

We here in America love to eat the same way most living beings love breathing. We have breakfast, brunch, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, dinner, pre-bedtime meals and assorted coffee breaks scattered throughout the day. If two of these unnecessary meals were cut from the average family's diet, that could add up to hundreds of dollars per head that could be used to pay off the massive amount of debt the average family seems to owe.

-White Collar Vagrancy

One of the ways the country kept itself employed during the Great Depression was turning to the life of the wandering farmhand, helping out whenever there were crops to harvest or fields to plant. Maybe not in that order. Do we have a modern equivalent? Temp agencies seem to be the solution, though their labor pool remains relatively fixed. Maybe every two weeks the government decides to outsource the construction of congressional speeches and budget proposals to a specific state. That way, we can get all those lazy, self-important business professionals to travel lightly, expand their networking capabilities, and otherwise get them away from the phone banks so a fresh crop of college graduates can take their places.

-Mandatory House Flipping

In a similar sense to the public works projects that dominated the landscape of the economically downtrodden 1930s, I'm proposing a way to fix the problem of the mortgage crisis. Rather than just demolishing the houses that have been vacated or gutted due to foreclosure problems, we give them back to the original owners in exchange for a little manual labor. All debts can be paid for by the simple act of fixing the problems of your home that the average homeowner's been putting off for years. Who wouldn't be willing to replace the gutters and fix the leaky pipe in the basement if it meant they got to keep their home, no questions asked? Even better, we can give larger estates and mansions to groups of the unemployed and underemployed. They'll appreciate having clean drinking water and a comfortable bed more than Bernie Madoff ever would.

-Fifty Federal Resort Casinos

It might sound somewhere between petty and downright insane to suggest that all the problems of the economy can be solved with government-sponsored gambling parlors, but I want to be very clear. I never suggested that relying on our country's addiction to Craps and Texas Hold'em poker was the panacea for our national debt, although it would pull in enough funds to convert our energy grid to one reliant on renewable resources. If you're worried about the potential for organized crime to funnel away federal money for personal gain, keep in mind that every casino employee must be a trained IRS agent. No one would dare steal from a pit boss who doubles as the state's tax auditor.