I’m From The Government, And I’m Here To Help You:

The Top 10 Ways To Survive The Not-Quite-So-Great Depression

10. Go to a swap meet. Swap all your credit defaults for some gently used Pez dispensers.

9. Call Iraq. Ask if we can pretty pretty please have our trillion dollars back now.

8. Call a random U.S. corporation. Claim to be Henry Paulson Jr. with “an offer they can’t refuse.” Use a gravelly voice.

7. Introduce new U.S. tourism marketing slogan: “The Collateralized States of America—you know, like France, but without the free healthcare and the good cheese.”

6. Keep shopping. We’ve never met a crisis we couldn’t spend our way out of.

5. Replace the stock market with a really big game of Chutes-n-Ladders

4. Play “Which one of these is not like the others?” using Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, AIG, Washington Mutual, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch.

3. Replace all golden parachutes with anvils.

2. Convert your retirement plan to crude oil.

1. Party like it’s 1929.

Originally written for BBC Radio 4, Sept 26, 2008