As I write this, I am on my way to Washington. As a retired person, I have seen my life savings cut in half in just a few months. Therefore, I decided to start my own business selling hot dogs for $100 each. But the recession has really hurt my business lately. No body wants to buy my $100 hotdogs. Now, I know that $100 is a lot to pay for a hotdog, but these are two pound hotdogs. My market research found that there are people who are willing to pay $100 for a large juicy two pound hotdog. I have to charge $100 because I am paying myself $500,000 a year (pretty reasonable for a CEO of a corporation) and I pay my son and daughter $75 an hour (including benefits) to work for me.
But now my business is in danger of going bankrupt, because no one will loan me $1,000,000 to pay my expenses. So I am on my way to Washington to ask for a bailout from Congress. I am sure they will give it to me because, after all, hotdogs are an American institution. Over two hundred million people eat hotdogs. What would happen if Americans could no longer buy hotdogs? Our economy would certainly collapse. Then there would be millions of hotdog venders out of work. We can’t let that happen.
I am not going to make the same mistakes the auto executives made when they went to Washington. Instead of taking a private jet, I have chartered a jet to save money. And I have also developed a plan on how I am going to spend the money they give me. Most of it will go to paying my salary and my kids’ wages. I was originally paying my kids $80 an hour, but I reduced it to $75. I can’t ask them to sacrifice any more. I am in the process of developing a one pound hotdog that I plan to sell for $50. This should increase my market share.
But my biggest problem is the foreign competition (at least it is foreign to me). They are selling smaller hotdogs for $2 each. They can afford to do this because they only pay their employees $10 an hour. My kids won’t work for $60 an hour, let alone $10. So I intend to convince Congress that the “fair” wage for selling hotdogs should be $75 an hour. This will force my competitors to raise their wages to make me more competitive.
Bankruptcy is not an option. Who would want to buy a $100 hotdog from a company in bankruptcy? The million dollars should last me until the economy gets better and I can then sell my company. Then I can collect on the Golden Parachute that I gave myself when I set up the company.
