Worried about the financial collapse? Learn how to turn your cardboard box into a cardboard home!

Earlier this week the House rejected the Bush Administration’s $700 billion bailout proposal — the always informative and unbiased Wall Street Journal explained it as, “a stunning turn of events that sent the stock market into a tailspin and added to concerns that the U.S. faces a prolonged recession if the legislation isn’t revived.”

Today, after an eternity of contentious and frequently poignant debate, the federal government’s extensive and historic plan to bail out the nation’s financial system was signed into law by the always insightful President Bush. Although this plan is meant to stabilize our economy and build consumer confidence, there is still a great deal of fear and confusion in middle-class America. As this fear spreads across the internet like a pack of drunken wombats ghost-riding through Sydney, everyone is coming up with ideas on how to cope with our new economy. I noticed a post on Yahoo! Answers where a particularly drunken marsupial raised one of the best points I have heard throughout this entire debacle.

“How you gonna feel when you’re living in a cardboard box? And all the government and wall street guys are still living in their castles and mansions?”

The answer to this question is simple: you are going to feel awful. But you will feel better once you’ve upgraded that cardboard box into your personal pimping penthouse. Here are some things to keep in mind when moving into your new cardboard digs:

· Cardboard is versatile. Cut it, shape it, tape it, paint it; you’re the architect of your own dream home.

· Cardboard is environmentally friendly, being made up of about 2/3 recycled fiber and 1/3 virgin fiber.

· You can constantly upgrade your cardboard box home by adding rooms, or ceiling height. Don’t like it? Scrap it and find another box.

Who says that you can’t continue to live the life of style and elegance you were accustom to before our economy fell apart?

Here are some simple ways to turn your cardboard box into a cardboard home.

Step 1 — Find a scheme

You’ll want to consider several different designs to find the scheme that best fits your needs. Schemes are freehand sketches drawn to capture the essence of a plan under consideration, and they can be as simple as paper napkin sketches you designed at your local Yum Yum Donuts (they will gladly lend you a pen). Schemes are valuable tools that will help your initial vision materialize into a magnificent cardboard structure. This process normally takes three to six months, but since our economy is mushroom clouding towards your face, let’s be realistic and say three to six weeks.

Step 3– Develop the design

This is the phase of the process where dimensions are added to your schemes. Everything must be made to fit as you develop your scheme into a firmly dimensioned drawing.

Step 4—Be creative

Your box can be as beautiful/ horrendous as you want it to be. Perhaps you’d like to spice up your bedroom with a jungle theme sure to make your significant other shudders in fear pants with desire. Or maybe you’d like to keep your box simple with a modern minimalist theme of moldy beach towels and garbage. The possibilities are endless. Let your imagination run wild!

Hot or Not – Taxidermy

Interior design can communicate feelings and emotions that are hard to explain with mere words. This is a quality I think modern politicians should take advantage of. However, while pursuing this thought process I became helplessly stuck. I thought, “What aspect of interior design could possibly transcend the social and economic boundaries needed to unite voters under a single leader?”

It hit me so suddenly I felt like a deer running across the highway

Taxidermy!

No one would look away from the television while Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union with the head of a Liger mounted on the wall behind him, and thinking about John McCain running his campaign with two majestic grizzly bears posing at his side gives me the chills.

The power of taxidermy was recently exhibited in Dubai, when Pakistani Artist Huma Mulji unveiled her display, “Arabian Delight,” at this year’s Art Dubai festival. The piece was inspired by the smuggling of contraband items through personal luggage and featured a stuffed camel squashed tightly into a suitcase. The piece stood out at the exhibition, and after the first night the display was removed because it portrayed a sacred animal in Indian culture in an offensive way.

Luckily, America’s most valued animals gain their stature by being the tastiest, so I think it’s safe to say that the majority of American’s would have no problem with steer heads mounted in the oval office above McCain’s desk.

If McCain begins a full taxidermy campaign, Obama will have no choice but to counter with an equally powerful strategy. Perhaps he could take Katy McColl’s advice and begin working with New Jersey road kill, which state officials have recently decided to stop collecting off the road. I’m not implying that Obama should don a fluorescent orange vest and scrape deer off the highway… but it couldn’t hurt.

The full power and influence of interior design has yet to be tapped in the realm of politics. I don’t know who will be the next President of the United States, but I do believe that a strong campaign focused on interior design, and specifically taxidermy, could decide Democracy’s next leader. Spread the word America, the future is staring you in the face.

Real Talk Design Verdict

Taxidermy is hot. Get it stuffed or get out.

Trying to decide what dead animal looks best next to your latest Minjun piece? Discuss at the RealTalkDesign.com forum.