Human sacrifice, why not?

With the failure of various bailouts, buyouts and H.R. Bill 435 (which would throw the kitchen sink at the stock market) to boost the Madonna-like sagging of our economic fortunes, it’s blindingly obvious that we Americans are going to have to sacrifice.

Human sacrifice has a long tradition of being an effective method of crisis resolution and economic management. Ancient Celtic tribes practiced human sacrifice to ensure good harvests, selecting a young, virile man to represent the collective community and then breaking his body and spirit with a barrage of physical and psychological torture. Echoes of this practice can be seen in the modern institutions of dating and marriage.

Other ancient cultures also practiced human sacrifice to ensure military success. It’s a historical fact that in 23 B.C. the Idiomites defeated the Similies after their king sacrificed his daughter Metafore. Of course, the Idiomites had iron weapons while the Similies were only equipped with bronze. Idiomites also had access to a more nutritious diet, but all that just took care of the light work after the sacrifice did all the heavy lifting. Never let historical fact get in the way of a good story.

In modern times, human sacrifice could be a great form of economic stimulus because of the catharsis it could provide consumers. By identifying an individual or group of individuals for the public to blame and then dispatching them in public, consumers could feel the cause of their misery has been removed, restoring their confidence and getting them back to performing the vital economic activities of buying stuff they don’t need with money they don’t have.

Once we’ve settled on human sacrifice as an option, choosing who to sacrifice will be tricky. We could pick our victims by a lottery, but this may face opposition from those of us who feel gambling, but not killing, is immoral. Choosing by ethnic or racial group is also out of the question because it could later lead to someone having to attend a sensitivity training course.

Might I suggest a collective purge of the nation’s CEOs and boards of directors? In addition to appeasing the economic gods, this would also have the added benefit of clearing out most of the shoddy thinking that led to our current dire straits. Also, seeing the fat cats get skinned will be greatly cheered by the many now jobless employees who have had to suffer because of their poor decisions.

Once they’re out of the way, their positions can be outsourced to Southeast Asia, where I hear the payscale is much cheaper. (For example, in Bangladesh I hear you can get a CEO for $75,000 a year. No corporate jets either, just an ultralight glider.)

Once we choose who we’re going to sacrifice, how to properly dispatch them presents another quandary. Traditional methods such as burning alive, stoning or cutting their hearts out may not be acceptable to modern society and would likely be disturbing to any children watching on television. More acceptable modern forms of human sacrifice could include lowering them into a pit of pregnant women who have been kept hungry for a couple of days, forcing them to go Vegan or having them hang outside Dothan’s Club Rio at night.

Tough times call for tough measures, and there’s very little that could be tougher than watching a former director of a Fortune 500 (sorry, Fortune 200, they had to shrink the list due to the economy) company shrivel to nothing as he attempts to survive on tofu and pasta.

Some might call this proposal voodoo economics, but really, does boosting the economy by mucking about with healthcare and carbon taxes make any less sense than just having some of the folks who caused the mess whacked?

Don’t betray Shiva. Contact Jim Cook at .