Shout-Out: ‘Lowlights of a Downer Year’

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Dave Barry on the money, madness, and misery of 2009.

Summing up the year’s news, as only Dave Barry can. Reading won’t save you any money, but perhaps it’ll make you chuckle. A sample from February’s “news” highlights:

General Motors, which has sold only one car in the past year — a Buick LaCrosse mistakenly purchased by an 87-year-old man who thought he was buying a power scooter — announces a new four-part business plan, consisting of (1) dealership closings; (2) factory shutdowns; (3) worker layoffs; and (4) traveling backward through time to 1955. The stock market hits its lowest level since 1997; this is hailed as a great investment opportunity by all the financial wizards who failed to let us know last year that the market was going to tank. California goes bankrupt and is forced to raise $800 million by pawning Angelina Jolie.