Since I spotted this both on LYN and QT3, I figured it was amusing enough to post. The adult entertainment industry in the United States has just asked the government for a bailout. The article writes:

“People are too depressed to be sexually active,” Flynt said in the statement. “This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex.”

“With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind. It’s time for congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America. The only way they can do this is by supporting the adult industry and doing it quickly.”

Obviously, this is a tongue-in-cheek move made for publicity reasons rather than a serious grab for cash, though as one astute QT3 poster pointed out, they certainly wouldn’t say no if any cash were actually offered. After all, they’re only asking for US$5 billion, a mere drop in the ocean compared to what’s been doled out already. Still, it does highlight how arbitrary it would be if government’s simply dolled out public money to companies that complained about being unable to survive a downturn. Companies are meant to compete in how well they deliver to consumers what they really want, not in how good they are at persuading public officials to hand them cash.