The Dow Jones Diet

Alcoholism is a disease. Obesity is a disease. Gambling is a disease. So why not capitalism, too?

For Academy Award-winning director Michael Moore, capitalism is essentially legalized greed.

And since greed is a sin (as the last three Catholic popes described it), then capitalism is also evil.

While it’s easier to control diseases than evil, you might as well lump them together as one big spiritual ailment.

It’s what a friend of Bill would do.

However, when Moore asked CNN’s Anderson Cooper where the “spine” of the Democratic Party was in its reformation of federal health care finance, The Lone Star Iconoclast couldn’t help but wonder:

Aren’t the American people the spine? Aren’t we also the eyes, nose, ears, and mouth? Aren’t we the heart and the soul of this nation?

Moore has been on a serious press tour for his new documentary Capitalism: A Love Story that has allowed him to show a more humble temperament, arguably even more-so than during publicity of his last film, Sicko.

Ironically, the very citizens that ought to see both pictures more likely than not can’t since they probably can’t afford the tickets.

As former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich pointed out, “One out of six Americans is either unemployed or underemployed. Homes can no longer function as piggy banks because they’re worth almost a third less than they were two years ago. And for the first time in more than a decade, Americans are now having to pay down their debts and start to save.”

That said, money might trickle down so that certain fannies can fill the theater seats.

Where is the money going to come from?

According to Reich, Big Government.

“The great consumer retreat from the market is being offset by government’s advance into the market. Consumer debt is way down from its peak in 2006; government debt is way up. Consumer spending is down, government spending is up,” Reich wrote in his piece, “Why The Dow is Hitting 10,000 Even When Consumers Can’t Buy And Business Cries ‘Socialism.’”

Unfortunately, as the federal government has supposedly “taken over” health care, autos, housing, energy, and finance, the average working class citizen hasn’t seen much relief.

So you’ve got to wonder, what are all those 29 million unemployed or underemployed people doing with their free time if not lobbying Congress.

Are they all on low-work diets?

According to KRGV Channel 5 News, students at Ochoa Elementary School in Donna, Texas, were already rationing toilet paper.

“The Donna Superintendent says toilet paper was removed Monday and Tuesday because of an ongoing problem with students putting too much paper in the toilets and clogging them. However, CHANNEL 5 NEWS has learned that that policy is changing today,” the station reported.

So if rationing is good enough for children in South Texas, why isn’t it good for Wall Street?

— Nathan Diebenow