The Jackass Penalty

The Germans are all over San Francisco this summer. So are the English, the French and the Irish. I heard Russian (or was it Ukrainian?) and a language which sounded how I think Scandinavian languages should sound like. San Francisco, a world city, is never short of accents but this is the first time I've noticed so many Europeans.

It's the Germans I notice most, because they look so much like Americans. Almost; only they all smoke, even the young ones. Germans waiting in line for a cable car at Powell and Market -patient Germans. Germans wearing Gap and Old Navy -suburban Germans. Germans with their pants slung low over their boxers -gangsta Germans. Who are these Germans and what are they doing here?

Then it ocurred to me. They are here because our money is worth less than theirs. We are a cheap date. We are the new Canada without the universal healthcare, intelligent political debate or the good manners. San Francisco is expensive for me, but it is not for them (or the French, the English, the Spanish or the Danes..). How unfair! After all, wasn't it my Grandparents who paid to rebuild their Grandparent's country? Why should they get all the Ghirardelli chocolate? Ingrate Germans. The nerve.

But then I remembered. We live in a country that elected a jackass for president. Twice. A country so intellectually lazy, that it bought the fake Texas accent with all the fix'ns, so long as there was an implied promise there would be no sex with interns in the Oval Office. It's not like we endured, so much as we invited the perfect storm of ideology, incompetence and corruption that followed. It can't be a coincidence that the popularity of MTV's show and movie "Jackass" corresponds exactly with the ascendancy of George W. Bush from his nomination by the Republican Party for President, to his "Mission Accomplished" speech. From MTV to Fox News, CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS, it was all Jackass, all the time.

I did not vote for him. On the contrary, I voted against him, the absolute minimal amount of action I could take. It hardly lets me, or my millions of fellow minimalists off the hook. There is plenty of jackass to go around.

"Wall Street got drunk." is how our Bartender-in Chief explains what happened, this after presiding over a 24/7 happy hour for the Street from the moment he took office. Of course they got drunk. Who wouldn't? Now, convicted by the steely-eyed justice of the international currency markets, our money is worth less. We are being penalized for our collective judgment, or lack thereof.
The Jackass Penalty

Maybe it's not so bad.
If some financial turbulence is the only consequence we face for our collective lapses, we can consider ourselves lucky. It's not like its forever. Look at the Germans, they know all about the Jackass Penalty.
Now they have the run of San Francisco.