Crap and Trade in Stump County 

Happy New Year from Stump County, population 999.  We are a little behind the rest of the country so it is somewhere around 1932 here.  We are trying to keep up with the rest of you, but it sure is confusing trying to make sense of all of the things the politicians keep doing.

We heard about the Cap and Trade bill that is supposed to limit carbon submissions. We didn’t understand it but they say it is all about saving the earth.

The best we can figure is that the earth is heating up and the amount of carbon in the air is higher than it was. The question we want answered is: Is the amount of carbon in the air making the earth warmer or is the earth getting warmer causing the amount of carbon in the air to increase?

The best we can figure is that nobody knows the answer but a bunch of folks have decided the carbon is at fault.  They can’t prove it but they think if they say it often enough and loud enough everyone will agree. Then they can somehow make money with it.  They sound just like those tent preachers that come through.  Scare the hell out of you and then pass the collection plate.

The other question we have is: Back when all of the coal and oil they are burning and releasing the carbon from was in plants and animals shouldn’t the amount of carbon in the air have been decreasing?  I guess the folks that were alive back then had poor testing equipment or maybe they kept poor records. On the other hand, maybe they are part of the coal and oil folks are burning and their carbon is being released into the air.

Anyway, in trying to catch up with the rest of the county, our Bored Supervisors just passed a Crap and Trade bill. We don’t have cars; we don’t burn much oil or coal so our biggest environmental hazard is manure.  Manure is like carbon.  Every animal releases it and every plant needs it. We thought by using it to grow crops we were taking care of the land.

According to the politicians we were wrong.  They brought in some crap consultants who measured just how much each family, farm and business produced.  They say they are going to bring the crap level in Stump County down to where it was 20 years ago. They measured chicken crap, hog crap, horse crap, sheep crap, dog crap, cat crap, goat crap and bull crap. Then they put a cap on crap.

Now, if we exceed our allotment they will fine us. Since none of us have any money we will be “crap out of luck.”  If Cletus wants to buy another horse he will have to buy a horse allotment from somebody. If his cow has a calf he will have to buy an allotment.

Then what happened is what that professor feller called “the law of unintended consequences.”  It didn’t take long before a cow allotment was worth more than a cow, a sheep allotment was worth more than the sheep and so on. So then everybody ate their stock or sold it out of the county and the livery stable closed down. Unemployment jumped since nobody needed hired hands anymore to help care for the stock.

Then with the shortage of manure the crops failed.   There’s no meat, no milk, no eggs, no wheat, no beans, no corn, no taters and no grits.  This Crap and Trade shore didn’t help us any. You can’t buy any food or crap in Stump County today.