Ahhhh, the joys of babysitting my 8 year old granddaughter. Please follow across the jump...coming up NOW...
Whilst visiting my favorite blog and worrying about our economy( what a dilemma...either we get more jobs or we get screwed even more by the repugs come 2012 and the ascension of Romney or Palin) she was watching looney tunes. Then the epiphany SLAMMED me!
A Looney Tunes cartoon, called "Yankee Dood It" with Elmer Fudd and Sylvester the cat, was made in 1956. Here's the synopsis:
This cartoon short is based on the fairy tale The Elves and the Shoemaker, set 150 years after that story took place (in the mid-19th century)[1]. Elmer Fudd is the progressive King of industrial Elves. He visits an outmoded shoemaker's shop to extol the virtues of mass production capitalism to the shoemaker, whose pet cat, Sylvester, uses the magic word, "Jehosophat" to turn Fudd's elf helper into a mouse and chases him around the shoemaker's shop. Saying "Rumpelstiltskin" changes him back to an elf.
To me the real message in this cartoon was that the money earned by the shoemaker should be put back into his business, thus expanding the business, creating more jobs and enriching his community. As the business grows wages increase and more profit is made. The elf went on to explain that all the profit should then be plowed BACK into the business to buy newer and better machinery. When the shoemaker questioned this the elf explained how the constant revitalization fo the business benefited all.
This cute little cartoon had quite a handle on basic capitalism and while watching it I realized that we could use it as a primer for the so called businessmen of today. Most are more worried about Wall Street making an obscene profit than about real businesses and real jobs. I firmly believe that the greed of the '80's (think Alex Keaton) under Saint Ronnie screwed us more than any other point in the past 60 years.