Chocolate & The GFC

Discussion on the general nature of the financial crisis in the course of a dinner in celebration of E@L's mother's birthday was diverted by the mention of The Coogee Bay Hotel incident.

E@L might have missed this, as might you, our eyes turned t'ward things of higher import but for the diligence of No1 son who mentioned it in passing as the dessert was served.

The chef apparently got pissed off at some customers and, in an inspired comment on the role of critics in society, took a dump on the plate of their ice-cream.

Discussion on this disgusting and hilariously anti-epicurian episode then devolved back into further evaluation of what had been actually been happening on Wall St.

Sooo..... There was this pile of shit on someone's dessert plate when they had ordered the Belgian chocolate.

Then there were these companies which sold genuine Belgian chocolate. They had made historically reliable fortunes, bringing solid money to discerning investors.

Smart people in these companies decided that there was a profit that could be made if they could sell the shit onto some other table before anyone tasted it. They estimated that they could make a quick profit if they could move the shit into someone else's dessert plate and then run off quickly, and that they new customer would, or could, indeed should, do the same. Sort of like a game of hot potato.

They bought the shit and repackaged it.

They thought they could make even more money in a deregulated restaurant environment. No taste checks, just sell, sell, sell. Cut and run, greed is good, profit motive, and that core philosophical dictum that guides the deep essence of true capitalism, Barnum's Dictum: There's a shit-sucker born every minute.

These smart money-makers started mixing small pieces of shit into some of the Belgian chocolate and they got away with it. No-one tasted it before they sold it on. Thanks to Alan Greenshit there were no regulations anymore, they could do what they wanted. They mixed in more amounts of shit into more types of Belgian chocolate. They sold it on again. They employed contractors to mix the chocolate and the shit and they had no way to keep track of the mix and which chocolates were clean… Soon all was various mixes of shit and chocolate. Prices and risks were stratified according to the presumed ratio of Belgian Chocolate and shit. It was a brilliant idea, fortunes were made left and right...

But you know what? Belgian chocolate mixed with even the teeniest, eensiest, weensiest little bit of shit still tastes a lot more like shit than it does chocolate...

So when someone thought they'd try a taste of that expensive Belgian chocolate...

It was... Erghhh… Caarckk!... Ptoowie! ...

The world of suckers and their shit for chocolate schemes imploded, taking both scat lovers and Belgian chocolate lovers down with it.

And we are a wiser world for this, just as we were after the Crash of '29.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Luckily, there was one man who stood alone, one man who had converted his [meagre] investments into cash (but into Aussie dollars , do'h!)… that man was...

E@L