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In This Issue

• The Many Temptations of Jesus Christ, CC 20 AD
• Slackers Take a Stand on Work
• Letters to the FEDitor
• From the Archives: Volume 14, Number 1 - February 1999
• David Foster Wallace, 46, Found Dead in Apartment
• Found: Lost Diary of a Sensitive Frat Boy
• ‘Roo 08: The Fed Reports
• Last Nightʼs Study Break on Hartley 5
• Confessions from a Member of God’s Flock
• The McCain/Obama Liveblog From Hell
• The Rime of a SEAS student
• Bra Burning is sooo passé
• Stephan Vincenzo: The Man, The Legend
• Orientation Activities: The Horror, The Horror
• Straight from the White Board of my NSOP Hookup
• The start of a new year...
• And now, two freshmen getting it on.
• Columbia Court
• Secret Oval Office Tapes Exposed! George W. Bush: “Fuck the Economy. And Fuck You.”
• THE FED Presents: A Political Cartoon
• A Public Service Announcement
• THE FED has this to say
• The Staff of 24.1
• THEY Watch

Jody Zellman

A recent recording from the most top-secret political dossier has been leaked to the press by the Office of Standards and Practices. Disclosed within the tape's grainy audio is the voice of almost-former President George W. Bush, as he reveals his single, unquestionable reason for leading America's economy into a fiscal chasm whose darkness and horror are unparalleled in the nation's history: He wanted to put his face on money.

The President is captured in dialogue with former Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snow. The tape, dated May 15, 2003, records Secretary Snow's attempts to convince the President to run for reelection. President Bush protests, "I don't wanna. They can't make me," before the audio is temporarily drowned out. The subsequent static is interspersed with what some analysts have compared to "the opening of TRL." Soon after, listeners can hear the promise that may have convinced America's last white President to assume the position as incumbent: "If you do [the] 2004 [election]... I'll put you on the dollar- fifty bill." The following day, on May 16, the President announced his bid for reelection.

One other incriminating factor revealed the missing piece in the President's logic for impoverishing his own people. A memo to the President, entitled "The One-Dollar Bill: What It Is And Who Uses It," was delivered on July 29, 2001. The memo included a section of "Fun Facts," as were prevalent in the President's memos; among them was the worth of the US Dollar in other currencies, including a bright red starburst reading "1.05 Euro," a common measure of the dollar's purchasing power in foreign markets.

Bush's plan, then, was to make everything for which a consumer would have used a one-dollar bill require the one-fifty bill; thus, the President would have the single most-handled face in American history. Today, the dollar is worth 70 Euro cents-exactly two thirds of what it did that day. George H. W. Bush may have sprained the economy's ankle, but his son sought to amputate its legs.

It is eerie to gaze in perfect hindsight on the efficiency with which the master plan was effectuated-the master plan of a man who, in college, replaced primates in psychological studies when monkeys were unavailable.

Surprisingly, President Bush seems to have since forgotten his secret pact, not once having mentioned it to Treasury Secretary Snow or to his successor, Henry Paulson, Jr. In fact, when Snow met the President at a Congressional social function and joked that he would "try and get [his] face on some new coins," Bush responded, insouciant, "Jonathan, oft I find your wit eludes me." Curiously, however, the economic plan hatched years earlier has remained unchanged.

The economist may ask why, if the President is no longer seeking to be enshrined on currency, the markets still falter. Many rumors have circulated: Arby's combos cost five dollars and the President refuses to carry anything smaller than a ten; perhaps he enjoys the expressions on the faces of the hungry.

(Perhaps, as some "economists" suggest: a lack of buyer confidence has lead to a decline in consumerism- due to an exacerbated failure of the free market that began with overreaching lenders seeking greater returns on mortgages when housing prices reached their cyclic peak-and cannot be fixed overnight or by shock spending.)

The true cause remains a mystery, but we know this: had the $1.50 bill been printed, the President would have survived forever, ubiquitous in the wallets of consumers who could only buy two-thirds as much shit.