In a move that seems even more bizarre than the unfolding financial debacle on Wall Street, the Federal government announced this week that two federal agencies will merge.
The Food and Drug Administration and the Resolution Trust Corporation will combine. The agency will be known as the Food And Resolution Trust for Drugs Corporation.
Affectionately called "Fart Dr. Corp" the new group will display an interesting array of governmental talents. According to one spokesman, "Americans need to get used to seeing government agencies combine like this because there are so many of us. We're like 50 head of cattle in a 4 horse trailer. We can't but help but step in each other's business."
Voters alive in the 80's will recall that the former Resolution Trust Corporation was established to clean up the Savings and Loan scams perpetrated by Ronald Reagan's buddies. The irony of the name was lost on only a few.
The FDA, likewise, had as its original charge, the task of keeping Americans safe from bad food, bad medicine and the bad corporations that promote both.
Over the years, their recommendations have become so compromised that the average American now flees in terror from any food labeled "FDA Approved."
Likewise, any medicine given the FDA imprimatur has an immediate "betting spread" for how long it will be before:
A). Someone dies.
B). The lawyer ads start and
C). The government finds a way to make that drug exempt from prosecution.
Almost immediately, the new groups have announced the fruits of their labors.
"Well, we used to offer sub-prime mortgages," a former RTC spokesman noted. "But now, we offer sub-prime chickens."
"These are chickens that for a number of reasons, such as being dead, wounded, blind, obese or cancer riddled, were unable to walk across the slaughter room floor." We have re-packaged these less than perfect birds and plan to offer them to the public at bargain basement prices."
A former FDA counterpart chimed in "And we have something, too!" "We now have mortgages that will kill you. Get behind on one these babies and you'll find Guido parked right down the street."
"Remember, at the FDA… I mean FART DR CO, we don't care if you die, as long as we get our money."