First, I want to make it clear that I am in no way claiming full credit for the record 9.7% unemployment rate currently rocking our nation’s economic socks off.  Achieving this stunning unemployment rate took hard work and dedication from every corner of our great nation–from the unemployed pipe-fitter watching “American Dad” on Hulu in his underwear at noon in Skokie, Illinois, to the unemployed newspaper journalist watching “Family Guy” on Hulu in his underwear at 5pm in Corvallis, Oregon.  From day one, we were in this together.  And to my fellow unemployed people (”unempeople?”), I say this:  The politicians all told us the economy was turning around.  “There are glimmers of hope,” they said.  They told us we couldn’t take the unemployment rate any higher than 9.4%.  Well, last month more than 216,000 of you stood up and said “Yes, we can”–and lost your jobs.  And for this, I salute you.

No, I am not taking sole responsibility for this historic achievement.  I am, however, taking most of the responsibility.  See, if there truly is an “army of unemployed” out there then I’m a five-star general.  This is because, outside of the occasional summer job and internship, I have never been fully employed.  This makes me THE MOST UNEMPLOYED PERSON IN THE WORLD–the Martin Luther King Jr. of the laid-off! The Jesus of the idle masses!  And it is writ in Milton Freidman’s Capitalism and Freedom that once every millennium THE MOST UNEMPLOYED PERSON IN THE WORLD appears in the shape of a half-Asian man; and when THE MOST UNEMPLOYED PERSON IN THE WORLD takes a human form, THE HIGHEST UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD will reign for the next 300 years.  It’s simple cause-and-effect.

So how did a 24 year-old nobody become so spectacularly unemployed that he single-handedly caused the highest unemployment rate in 26-odd years?  Probably the smartest move I made was majoring in Sociology at a small liberal arts school.  This guaranteed my unemployment in all but the most real-estate-bubbly-fucked-up-financial-products-bloated-market.  I wish I could say I shrewdly chose the major because I knew it would help me achieve a record unemployment rate, but I was young and naive at the time and actually believed Sociology to be “interesting” and “maybe useful.”  You know, even penicillin was discovered by mistake!

The second crucial move was taking a year off from college after my sophomore year, thus ensuring that I would strategically graduate at the height of the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression.  Again, I wish I could say this was far-sighted planning on my part.  In fact, I took a year off because I was uncertain about “what I wanted to do with my life.”  If only I had a time machine!  I would go back to 2004 and show my young, unsure self how he would come to lead the world, as long as that didn’t require putting any pants on.  (Reader, you will come to learn that not putting on pants is one of the great benefits of unemployment.)

The third most important decision I made was choosing journalism as my career.  Everyone knows there is only one journalism job left in the world, and it is calibrating the soulless supercomputer that writes Maureen Dowd’s New York Times column.  (OK, that’s an exaggeration: Calibrating the supercomputer takes twenty-seven people.)  Surely, I must have chosen a clearly dying profession because I knew it would aid in my quest to become THE MOST UNEMPLOYED MAN IN THE WORLD.  No!  I chose journalism because I thought it would get me chicks.  And, judging from all of the fan mail I am receiving in my capacity as THE MOST UNEMPLOYED MAN IN THE WORLD, it looks like that prediction came true, albeit in a round-about way!

So, there you have it.  That’s how I became THE MOST UNEMPLOYED MAN IN THE WORLD and caused our 9.7% unemployment rate.  But if you think I’m stopping now, you’re sadly mistaken.  I have big plans for the next 300 years.  We’re talking double, maybe even triple digits.  There’s only one thing that can stop me, and that’s THE MOST EMPLOYED MAN IN THE WORLD.  Lucky for me, Gerald Ford died a long time ago.