It’s No Cluetrain
Something’s up with the economy. Holy shit-balls… I hate to break the bad news folks. I don’t know what you all use for your internal economic compass – those things that you see and hear on the day-to-day that point your gut to a positive North or negative South. Perhaps you watch the stock market. Could be the economy is a direct reflection of who got kicked off “The Bachelor” last night. Maybe it’s the bitterness of the bean from your favorite coffee shop? You tell me.

For a long while, I used to believe the state of the economy was a direct reflection of how many trucks I would witness on the highway as I drove to work. I used to keep charts and graph my data every morning against the stock market. My central hypothesis is as follows: The number of trucks on the road is a direct correlation to the robustness of the U.S. manufacturing sector and reflects an increase/decrease in the demand for U.S. manufactured goods. All those eighteen wheelers had to be moving units round the country right? It just made sense that if you don’t see trucks moving units that that was a good sign that peeps was oversupplied and product was sitting on shelves. Investors would no doubt be concerned about this and would force management to lay off workers.

Sweet hypothesis no? Well at least it gave me something do to as I commuted to work. If I only saw four or five trucks on a given morning, I would run around the rest of the day like Chicken Little. But what I failed to realize – what I was denying the whole time – was that I have a fascination with trucks and trucking. The lifestyle. The tight logos on the trucks. I was mesmerized. I was consumed with envy. I watched the movie “Convoy” like 100 times. I made up reasons to be ‘into trucks’.

Once I abandoned the Trucking Rubric as an economic market indicator, I needed to find a new measurement. I needed something tangible – nothing I could read or be spoon fed. I like my economic data raw and uncensored. I like to touch it with my hands and smell it’s bargaining power.

I think I may have found it.

It’s a little more subjective but it works. Fuck, it’s even hard to describe but here it goes. The state of the market is a direct reflection of the number of weird sales products, their pitches, and the people pitching them.

Maybe an example will help. Yesterday, while pumping gas at a station called the Bee-Hive, which is famous for having an enormous plastic bee-hive perched on its roof top, I was approached by a shifty and skinny leathery tanned shorty who came at me in a strange arc that looked like he was rounding second base and heading for third. He said he would only take a minute of my time and wanted to know what cologne I used. He rattled off a number of brand names and said he just happened to have a truck here that was overstocked with product. He could get me a great bargain. What did I use? I told him nothing. Sometimes I used this stuff by Aveda for Men, but I didn’t really wear cologne. He was nonplussed. He tried a few more angles, insulted me, said I wouldn’t get chicks without one of his colognes. I wasn’t buying. He left me thinking I was a eunuch. I noticed several other people using the same shtick on others at the station.

Driving home there were two guys on Hennepin Avenue selling kittens out of a box to people stopped at red lights.

The other day while eating lunch at a delicious Indian restaurant, I witnessed two, fresh out of college, sales hacks try and convince the restaurant proprietor to switch his long distance carrier from Qwest to AT&T. It was pathetic. They tore open his Qwest bill and examined it. After a minute or two, one of young sales punks turned to the proprietor and told him they couldn’t save him any money on the bill but, “you should really switch to AT&T – don’t you know who we are?” Which was followed by the even more convincing, “haven’t you seen us on T.V.?” Stellar sales tactics. Insult your customer until they plead for mercy and buy your product. The whole ridiculousness of the event was further punctuated by a large rooster mascot that I witnessed out the window of the restaurant. It was dancing outside of a Tires Plus in the sun. It was making ‘raise the roof’ gestures, trying to convince people through pantomime that they needed to pull in and purchase a new set of tires. Roosters to sell tires? It was funny. The economy is in trouble.