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Shovel-ready capes

Posted by Richard on April 21, 2011

In the immortal words of Dave Barry, I am not making this up. Workforce Central Florida is helping out the unemployed in the Orlando area by offering them superhero capes:

The region's federally funded jobs agency is spending more than $73,000 on a media campaign to raise awareness of its services.

As part of a superhero theme, it has created a cartoon character named "Dr. Evil Unemployment" and spent more than $14,000 on 6,000 satiny superhero capes.

It plans to distribute the capes to jobless residents who participate in the agency's "Cape-A-Bility Challenge."

I wonder if they're spending federal stimulus funds on this campaign. If so, do you suppose there's a big sign that says, "Capes funded by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act"?

I wonder why they feel a need to raise awareness of their services. Are there so many competing federally funded jobs agencies in the Orlando area that they have to aggressively market themselves?  

But mostly I'm thinking: They're fighting Dr. Evil Unemployment with capes. With stagflation looming on the horizon, how long until someone brings back WIN buttons?

Whip Inflation Now button

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5 Responses to “Shovel-ready capes”

  1. David Bryant said

    I hear they’re hiring at the “Daily Planet”. ;^>

  2. Billll said

    As I recall we were all supposed to do our darnedest to whip inflation now. I also don’t recall president Carter actually doing anything that would have facilitated the effort.

  3. rgcombs said

    Yes, WIN is “Whip Inflation Now.” But it wasn’t from the Carter years. WIN buttons were Gerald Ford’s brilliant idea (or more likely one of his advisers).

    I suppose I should have included a link for the benefit of all the folks too young or too forgetful to remember WIN buttons. Wikipedia has a decent short explanation.

  4. Rick Shultz said

    Is it OK to just state the obvious? This is complete unbridled silliness that helps absolutely no one.

  5. Stupid Tax said

    It is interesting to see how the government spends money. They spend it with seemingly very little accountability.

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