The people in Persia were sad because they had no cookies.
While many efforts had been made to address the needs of the poor Persian cookieless people, the evil Republicans of The Government kept shooting down proposals intended to help… until one day, President Barack Obama pursuaded congress to form a cookie corporation “clothed with the power of government but possessed of the flexibility and initiative of a private enterprise.”
This entity would have extremely broad powers in the area of unified regional planning and economic development – and would be the yardstick or a standard of measurement, whereby the efficiency and cookie prices of private cookie companies could be tested for fairness.
They called this the Persia Cookie Authority.
President Obama was able to create this new deal because most of the Republicans in government had been voted out and those remaining loved the idea of an organization having “power of government but flexibility of private enterprise” – see, most of them owned stock or were getting kickbacks from government-subsidized sugar refining factories and thought there might be a no-bid contracts included in the deal – therefore they could indirectly make lots of money from the new Cookie Authority.
Now, the Cookie Authority did many good things for the cookieless Persian people.
The Authority provided them with cookies at a price their families could afford. The Authority created new jobs at the Cookie Processing Plants, which meant workers had money to buy cookies as well as cheap crap made in China and sold at the local Walmart. The Cookie Authority also taught the people how to play hopscotch, dodge ball and tag… all of which improved their lives, consumed a lot of energy, and meant they needed more cookies.
However, a handful of folks worried about the Cookie Authority’s power over the people. See, using the power of government, the Cookie Authority was able to take control of many kitchens in the area. Even when people didn’t want to give up their kitchens, the Cookie Authority took them through eminent domain – which is a law allowing the government to appropriate or take property for public use and the good of all people. Although the people liked the low-cost cookies, those who wanted to keep their kitchen were upset and thought this was unfair.
Of course, because the cookies were good and the Authority beneficial, the People got over their outrage quickly – and in time, it became well known and accepted that if the Cookie Authorities wanted your kitchen, they’d have it. So, you may as well just give it to them.
Other folks were concerned that the Authority’s cookie baking was taking a toll on the environment. The cookie processing plants were generating so much heat, the trees nearby were bare, the creeks were dry and the plant life (with the exception of the kudzu) had withered away. There were no fish, nuts, leaves or berries. The bears, squirrels, chipmunks, birds and bugs were having a hard time finding food. Some packed up their nests and caves and moved to other places. Other critters simply started eating the old cookie dough the Cookie Processing Plants tossed in their dough disposal site.
This caused the raccoons, opossums, birds, chipmunks, squirrels, coyotes and bears to become enormously fat and unhealthy. Then, the snakes, owls, hawks and other animals, who ate the birds, bugs, chipmunks, field mice and squirrels, became too heavy and tired to fly or move. Citizens injured by falling fat owls was not uncommon at all.
Those squirrels, who did manage to flee the obese owls and hawks, had no nuts stored for the winter. The bears were too sugared up to hibernate in the winter and began wandering small villages and blocking traffic. The opossums and raccoons were too fat to scurry across the roadways or had heart attacks halfway across. This created a roadkill problem, which resulted in an overabundance of buzzards.
To combat the problem, the TWRA initially made a buzzard hunting season. When this didn’t work, they imported other carrion eaters from from Africa to eat the Buzzards – such as lions. Soon, because the lions had no natural predators, there were too many hungry lions wandering around Persia – eating the strange people who wander the Persia sidewalks at all hours of the night or those people who were knocked out by the fat falling owls. So, TWRA made lion hunting season, which helped a bit – but still didn’t fix the Buzzard population problem.
Eventually, the natural order of things had gotten into such a disarray, the government decided the Cookie Authority needed to fix some of the problems they had created. Alas, the Cookie Authority didn’t get into a big remediation hurry until the neighboring communities filed lawsuits due to the hungry lions and fat owls, which were wandering over into their territories.
Faced with lawsuits, the Cookie Authority decided they needed to develop heat reduction technology, implement an acorn provision program for the squirrels and a nutrition intervention program for the other animals. They needed to build larger disposal sites with higher walls and prevent sugar run-off and perhaps find study healthier alternatives to cookies.
Unfortunately, not only had the cost of making cookies increased – but these changes would be very expensive. So, despite the fact that the Authority saw profits and employee bonuses rise in fiscal 2007 AND in a separate report to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, detailed incentive payments greater than $25,000 to 54 top executives – they decided they’d need to raise their cookie rates drastically to cover the necessary improvements and operating costs.
The people weren’t pleased with the increase. They grumbled a bit but made an effort to be understanding because they realized operating costs had increased and were sorely troubled by the fat owls and hungry lions.
Months after the cookie price increase, however, the Authority also decided that a potential $2.7 million a year for the Cookie Authority Dude in Charge wasn’t enough. Using the yard stick of other folks, they decided his compensation rate should be more in the neighborhood of $3.27 million a year.
Now, the people were angry – because while the Cookie Authority Dude was making millions, most of the cookie eaters did not have much cookie money at all. In fact, they were cutting back on their cookies to survive or losing their cookies altogether. Many citizens, (particularly those who had a lot of doctor bills from obese-owl-related injuries or had paid fines for shooting African lions out-of-season) had to sign-up for Neighborhood Cookie Assistance programs until the Cookie Assistance programs were nearly dry. As a result, some people looked into alternatives to the cookies such as homemade brownies or cakes.
Well, the TVA has worked primarily in the same way – except with electricity rather than cookies. And that my children is why Mommy and Daddy has decided to grow corn, bought a Cornflame stove, and have been on the internet researching solar power…
Now, do you understand?
