Dead Parrot Economy

The British comedy troupe Monty Python’s Flying Circus performed its now-famous “Dead Parrot Sketch” in 1969 and many times after that. A customer enters a pet shop to get a refund for a dead parrot, but the pet shop owner refuses to acknowledge that the parrot is dead, insisting that it’s merely “resting.” During the financial crisis of 2008, the term “Dead Parrot Economy” was cited in print in June 2008 and in October 2008. Financial officials, according to the blog posts, refused to admit that the economy (a “dead parrot”) was really dead.
 
After a dismal jobs report was released in July 2011, political columnist Mark Steyn also used the “dead parrot economy” term.
 
 
Wikipedia: Dead Parrot sketch
The “Dead Parrot Sketch”, alternatively and originally known as the “Pet Shop Sketch” or “Parrot Sketch”, is a popular sketch from Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and one of the most famous in the history of British television comedy. It was written by John Cleese and Graham Chapman and first performed in the eighth episode of the show’s first series, “Full Frontal Nudity” (7 December 1969). The sketch portrays a conflict between disgruntled customer Mr Praline (played by Cleese) and a shopkeeper (Michael Palin), who hold contradictory positions on the vital state of a “Norwegian Blue” parrot. It pokes fun at the many euphemisms for death used in British culture.
 
The “Dead Parrot” sketch was inspired by a “Car Salesman” sketch that Palin and Chapman had done in How to Irritate People. In it, Palin played a car salesman who repeatedly refused to admit that there was anything wrong with his customer’s (Chapman) car, even as it fell apart in front of him. That sketch was based on an actual incident between Palin and a car salesman. In Monty Python Live at Aspen, Palin said that this salesman “had an excuse for everything.” John Cleese said on the same show that he and Chapman “believed that there was something very funny there, if we could find the right context for it.”
 
Over the years, Cleese and Palin have done many versions of the “Dead Parrot” sketch for various television shows, record albums, and live performances.
 
Plot
Mr. Praline enters the pet shop to register a complaint about the dead Norwegian Blue parrot just as the shopkeeper is preparing to close the establishment for lunch. Despite being told that the bird is deceased and that it had been nailed to its perch, the proprietor insists that it is “pining for the fjords” or simply “stunned”. As the exasperated Praline attempts to wake up the parrot, the shopkeeper tries to make the bird move by hitting the cage, and Praline erupts into a rage after banging “Polly Parrot” on the counter. After listing off several terms for death, he is told to go to the pet shop run by the shopkeeper’s brother in Bolton for a refund, but he is told by the proprietor of that store (who is really the shopkeeper, save for a fake moustache) that he is in Ipswich. Upon going to the railway station to complain, Praline is told by the station attendant (Terry Jones) that he is in Bolton, and he returns to the pet shop to confront the shopkeeper for deceiving him. Adding to the absurdity of it all is the fact that most parrots live in tropical climates, and none are native to Norway. Just as the dialogue is getting “too silly”, Graham Chapman’s no-nonsense colonel bursts in and orders the sketch to be stopped.
         
Pro Libertate
Monday, June 9, 2008  
“Stimulus” Spending: Making The Dead Parrot Twitch
(...)
But there are limits even to the investor class’s capacity for self-deception. At some point they’re going to have to stop admiring the beautiful plumage and admit that the damn parrot is dead—no matter how many times Bernanke reaches over and shoves the cage to make the bird’s lifeless body twitch.
   
The Catbird Seat
10 01 2008
The Wavy Rule, a Daily Comic by Paul Morris: ...Something Completely Different
Paul writes about today’s cartoon:
Is it just me, or is the American public not angry enough about this whole bailout? What we need is an Eric Praline-like character, high-pitched and indignant, to go before the President, or Congress, or both, and ask what in bleedin’ hell is going on: “Look, it’s people like you what cause unrest.”
(...)
COMMENTS
Love it. Only you would make an analogy between the U.S. economy and a dead parrot!
Benjamin Chambers
October 01, 2008
   
Zero Hedge
Empire State Manufacturing Survey Comes In At 19.1, 40% Drop From April: Restocking Over, Margins Increasingly Squeezed
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/17/2010 08:59 -0400
(...)
COMMENTS
by DeweyLeon
on Mon, 05/17/2010 - 09:54
HarryWanger and the “dead parrot” economy-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npjOSLCR2hE
 
The Market Oracle
U.S. Screwflation Nation - Ben and Tim at it Again!
Oct 23, 2010 - 05:40 AM
By: PhilStockWorld
(...)
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!  I am so frustrated by all this BS! How is this not obvious to people?  How do we let them keep doing this. Slowly, so even the people in the hats with the tea bags stapled to the brim can understand it: if the Fed pumps $1.25Tn into a $15Tn economy, that INFLATES prices by about 10%. Why? Because more money is chasing the same amount of goods and services in Timmy’s “dead parrot” economy.
   
StocksThatPay
The Fed’s Got POMO Fever!
Thu, Nov 11, 2010
(...)
The Fed has so far been accommodating, stepping up POMO by a factor of 5, which will be a real test of our “Dead Parrot Economy” theory as Bernanke seeks to apply that million-volt shock.
     
Above Top Secret
Bernanke insanity : no inflation, QE2 will finish on time, will not raise interest rates
Topic started on 27-4-2011 @ 12:21 PM by Vitchilo (...)
COMMENTS
reply posted on 27-4-2011 @ 04:01 PM by buskey
As I was watching ‘B.S.’ Bernanke, all I could think of was the parrot sketch from Monty Python.

Me: “This parrot (economy) is dead.” 
Ben: “No it’s not, it’s just resting.”
Me: “I know a dead parrot (economy) when I see one and this one is definitely dead.”
Ben: “No, it’s just resting, it will wake up soon.”
 
And on, and on, and…....
 
Except, it’s not funny anymore.
 
National Review Online—The Corner
Light motif
By Mark Steyn
July 9, 2011 8:42 P.M.
(...)
The media are loyally doing their best for the Flatline Administration by insisting that the dead parrot economy is not deceased but merely resting for an ”unexpectedly” longer period of time than had been expected. 
 
Gateway Pundit
It’s Worse Than We Thought… Obama’s Dead Parrot Economy Actually Lost 26,000 Jobs in June
Posted by Jim Hoft on Sunday, July 10, 2011, 3:04 PM
Can you say Double-Dip?
Barack Obama’s trillion dollar stimulus did not just fail… It failed magnificently.
The dead parrot economy actually lost 26,000 jobs in June rather than creating 18,000.