History Recap / SouthParkS13E3Margaritaville

* PretentiousPronounciation: The guy working at Sur la Table pronounces the "ble" in words like "table", "cable" and "agreeable" as "bluh".

* VerbalTic:
** The guy working at Sur la Table pronounces the "ble" in words like "table", "cable" and "agreeable" as "bluh".
** Josh from the finance company has a habit of saying "yeah... no" at random points in conversation.

* RunningGag: "Annnd it's gone!"

** Josh from the finance company has a habit of saying yeah... no at random points in conversation.

* InsaneTrollLogic: Randy's plan to fix the economy is for the people of South Park to not spend any money at all. When the town's economy unsurprisingly gets worse because of this, he's completely perplexed and decides to blame Kyle for it.

* ArtisticLicenseEconomics: Even discounting how Kyle was able to apply for a credit card, much less a limitless card, despite being underage, no credit card company is going to let a person stack up hundreds if not thousands of charges all the span of a few hours without freezing the card due to fraud concerns.

* ArtisticLicenseEconomy: Even discounting how Kyle was able to apply for a credit card, much less a limitless card, despite being underage, no credit card company is going to let a person stack up hundreds if not thousands of charges all the span of a few hours without freezing the card due to fraud concerns.

* ShaggyDogStory: Stan's side plot, which involves him talking to various people in an attempt to get a refund for the Margaritaville mixer, only to get denied at every turn when it turns out said machines are all part of a convoluted financing plan for people who want one but can't pay for one and said plan has already been sold to a different person whom he must now consult. When he finally moves up the ladder all the way to the treasury, it turns out their shorthand of "consulting the charts" regarding important financial decisions actually involves [[{{Cloudcuckooland}} cutting the head off a chicken, playing a version of "Yakety Sax" on a kazoo and watching the chicken run around on a giant gameboard, and deciding what action to take based on what space it finally expires on]]. Upon seeing this insanity, he gives up, throws the Margaritaville mixer on the gameboard and goes back home.

* MessianicArchetype: Kyle gets turned into one when he tries to get people to come round to the idea that the economy isn't an angry beast, and they need to start spending again to revitalise it. His initial "disciples" include Butters, Craig, Clyde, Kenny, and Cartman as the equivalent of Judas Iscariot.

* ShaggyDogStory: Stan's side plot, which involves him talking to various people in an attempt to get a refund for the Margaritaville mixer, only to get denied at every turn when it turns out said machines are all part of a convoluted financing plan for people who want one but can't pay for one and said plan has been already been sold to a different person whom he must now consult. When he finally moves up the ladder all the way to the treasury, it turns out their shorthand of "consulting the charts" regarding important financial decisions actually involves [[{{Cloudcuckooland}} cutting the head off a chicken, playing a version of "Yakety Sax" on a kazoo and watching the chicken run around on a giant gameboard, and deciding what action to take based on what space it finally expires on]]. Upon seeing this insanity, he gives up, throws the Margaritaville mixer on the gameboard and goes back home.

* InsaneTrollLogic: Randy's plan to fix the economy is for the people of South Park to not spend any money at all. When the town's economy unsurprisingly gets worse because of this, he's completely perplexed.

When Randy takes Stan to the bank to deposit a $100 cheque from his grandmother, the bank teller puts it in an investment account - and announces it has been immediately wiped out. The same thing happens to Mrs. Farnickle when she tries to make a deposit, and to Randy when he tries to recover Stan's money. Soon, all the residents of South Park are losing a fortune to the economic downturn. Randy tells Stan that the root cause is widespread frivolous spending and irresponsible mortgage lending, which has made the economy "angry"; as he says this, he unwittingly provides an example of frivolous spending by using an expensive Margaritaville frozen drink mixer.

The blame game for the recession runs rampant; Cartman, true to form, is convinced the Jews are hoarding gold in a cave, while Randy insists that the secret to appeasing the economy is to stop spending money entirely except for bread, water, and margaritas. The rest of the adults decide Randy's idea is brilliant, and soon the people of South Park are riding llamas instead of driving, wearing bedsheet togas to save on laundry detergent, and making their kids play with squirrels for entertainment.

And so the stage is set for a Biblical parable with Randy and his followers in the role of the Pharisees and/or Romans. Kyle, [[MessianicArchetype the parallel of Jesus in this story,]] tells his friends that the economy isn't the vengeful beast Randy claims; it's just made up of people, and they need to start spending again to get the economy going again. To prove his point, he applies for and receives a platinum American Express card with no spending limit, and says that it's just a piece of plastic until people put their faith in it to carry out economic transactions. When Randy and his followers get word of Kyle's "heresy", they believe he may be causing the continued economic decline, and Cartman, the equivalent of Judas Iscariot in the story, offers to betray Kyle to them - not for thirty pieces of silver, but for a copy of ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoChinatownWars''. Kyle doesn't give him the chance, though; he uses his credit card to pay off the debts of everyone in South Park, including Randy, at the cost of his own credit rating being decimated for life.

Meanwhile, Stan attempts to return the Margaritaville mixer. He first goes to the branch of Sur la Table where Randy bought the mixer, but is told they can't refund him directly since the mixer is on a payment plan held by Big Orange Finance Company. A representative at Big Orange tells Stan that Randy's plan was combined with hundreds of other payment plans into a Margaritaville security, and tells Stan to head to Wall Street. Once he gets there, a stockbroker tells him that widespread defaulting on Margaritaville payments has led to intervention by the Treasury Department.[[note]] Replace "Margaritaville drink mixer payment plan" with "home mortgage" and you have a succinct summary of one of the major causes of the global recession; starting in the late 1970s, mortgages were bundled into tradeable securities, but when the housing bubble burst in 2006 as thousands of homeowners defaulted on their mortgages after their low, "teaser" interest rates expired, the mortgage-backed securities plunged in value, dragging the global economy down with them.[[/note]] So Stan heads to Washington, DC, where he discovers that the Treasury Department makes policy decisions by decapitating chickens and letting their headless bodies run around a giant chart until they drop dead. Enraged, [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere he smashes the Margaritaville mixer on the chart and leaves.]]

At last, the economy in South Park is starting to turn around; Randy, having learned nothing from the ordeal, shows interest in another Margaritaville mixer with a salsa dispenser, while the media praise the person whose sacrifice is responsible for the upturn. No, not Kyle - UsefulNotes/BarackObama.

** When it is suggested that Kyle is the “only son of the Economy, sent to us”, Father Maxi angrily states that the Economy is omnipotent and capable of anything, and thus having only one son is completely illogical. He and everyone else is blind to the irony.