Total Recall, China’s Pollution Problem & American Prosperity

I recently read about a city in China where the air pollution is so bad, they literally had to close the city for days. And that reminded me of something: the movie Total Recall. No, not the recent one, but the Paul Verhoeven one from 1990 with Arnold Schwarzenegger. And you know what happens in that, right? Well, some evil capitalist sells oxygen for an exorbitant price to people on Mars who have been deformed by the pollution and radiation from working the mines there. And with the news that Arnold Schwarzenegger would like to run for president, I think I know what his plan is: Get the American economy going again by selling China coal and oil for their power plants, and when they pollute their air so much that they can’t breathe, we’ll charge China through the nose for oxygen so that they can breathe while they continue to pollute their country into a wasteland by making plastic crap and computer parts for us, a lot like in the movie Total Recall. (That would close the trade deficit!)

But of course we all remember what happened at the end of the movie, right? The good guys win, and the evil capitalists are destroyed. But that’s just a movie! Our evil capitalists will never be destroyed! Plus, Arnie was the hero in the movie, so surely he’ll win even when the shoe’s on the other foot, right? And if Schwarzenegger ever got called to testify about the scheme, he could claim his memory was erased, just like in the movie.

(BTW: This post is only a joke in bad taste, as this pollution issue in China is no joke. We’ve really got to find a way to work together somehow or we’ll all be in the same boat sooner or later. And that pollution from Asia makes its way here to America, you’ll see. And pretty soon some company will be selling us air to breathe too, at ridiculously exorbitant prices.)