And not because it was funny or hip — this $16 million spot was all earnestness. The late Paul Harvey's workingman voice painted a romantic picture of why America needs farmers.
"Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed, and brake, and disk, and plow, and plant, and tie the fleece and strain the milk."
But God made
Though that might need some fact-checking, columnist Brett Arends, working on that assumption, hypothesized as to why God made bankers on MarketWatch today.
Farmers are very good at making stuff, but what the world really needs is someone "who will borrow money from the public at 0% interest and then lend it back to the public at 2% or 5% or 10% and pay himself a bonus for doing so," riffs Arends.
"God said, 'I need someone to lend money to people with bad credit at 30% interest in order to get his stock price up, and then, just before the loans turn bad, cash out his stock and walk away. And who, when asked later, will, with a tearful eye, say the government made him do it.'
"God said, 'And I need somebody who will tell everyone else to stand on their own two feet, but who will then run to the government for a bailout as soon as he gets into trouble — and who will then use that bailout money to help elect a Congress that will look the other way. And then pay himself another bonus.'"
Read the full column here.