The following opening is styled after one of the most memorable scenes from the 1992 comedy “My Cousin Vinny” starring Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei. Ama-gine for a minute that Joe Pesci is Dubya unfolding his plans for the U.S. economy and Marisa Tomei is Mona Lisa Vito, the Oscar-winning best supporting actress role she played in the movie.

Joe Pesci (as Dubya): “Ow! What do you think of these plans I’m making?”

Marisa Tomei (as Mona Lisa Vito): “Ama-gine you’re no longer mama’s little dear; you’re prancin’ along in life; you’re lookin’ for a job; you spot an opening in a big company; you put your whole heart and soul into the interview and get the job, and bam!!! The f*$%in’ economy rips your life apart; you lose your job and your career is lying in little bloody pieces. Now I aks ya, wudju give a f*$# what kinda plans the son of a Bush who shot your career was making?”

Okay, okay, I agree that was an unwarranted attack on the capabilities of the president of the most powerful country in the free world.

But you have to admit, he sets himself up as a pretty good clay pigeon. And according to one expert layperson (a hairstylist in New York) interviewed by National Public Radio a couple of months back, Dubya was the single-point focus of the reason for the battered state of the economy.

While Wall Street gurus might argue about missed earnings forecasts and milli-fractions taken off from second quarter results of dot.busted.companies, you must agree that placing the blame squarely on Dubya is easy and too tempting to resist.

At the somber street level, though, the tumbling economy has meant the displacement of many lives, many families and many careers.

And unlike the reports of mayhem in Japan or Nepal, or the poverty in many countries, this sobering scenario in the United States is one that most people can identify with, thanks to its effect being directed upon people like you and me.

Well, okay, I don’t know about you, but I was this close to getting laid off from my cushy job in New York City (which consisted of a 3-hour daily commute and 10 hours of working on perfecting my carpal tunnel syndrome for future medical studies).

I managed to remain one step ahead of this debilitating experience by quitting my job before they could tell me to go.

But I’m one of the luckier few, who also has a Ph.D. program waiting at the end of the summer, with tuition paid for and a stipend to live on.

Most other people I know of, though, are experiencing what a friend of mine calls the “Snickers Syndrome.”

They’re not going anywhere for a while.

And, not having a job, they not only have to watch their weight, but also their wallet now, and probably have to forego the Snickers too. Now you know how frustrating it can get.

There’s one more thing these “tough business conditions” have opened my eyes to. I used to think the worst case scenario for somebody’s career could only be losing their job.

Here’s a far more psychologically scarring experience – how about being on the verge of graduation, having a terrific job offer with the company of your dreams, feeling so ecstatic about it that you start dreaming about your life as if you’ve won the lottery, making plans for the future (just like Dubya), stopping your job search completely, and then having that terrific job offer withdrawn a couple of weeks before you are scheduled to start, to be left completely in the middle of nowhere, and having to start all over again?

It’s as crappy as a broken relationship. And the only good thing about it is probably that you don’t have to deal with being “good friends” with your ex (prospective-employer).

And Corporate America, with its army of attorneys at hand, has ensured us that there’s pretty much zilch you can do in such cases. Apparently, there is such a clause as “employment at will” or something to that effect, which pretty much means that you can be fired without reason by an employer, before or during employment.

Those guys on “Survivor” should go through something like this, especially when they are at the beginning of their careers.

An acquaintance of mine in New York handled his being laid off by remaining as far from sober as he could for a whole week. Another friend of mine did the jilted lover routine.

I guess I took the sissy way out by working out an option for myself before they could do me in.

Now I wonder what Dubya would do if he got laid off? Oh, I forgot. He can’t get laid off. He doesn’t work for Corporate America.

Narayan Devanathan is a graduate student in journalism and mass communication from Hyderabad, India.