What should I make out of temptations and my weakness for them? I am not entirely ashamed of my weakness. What is my motivation of quelling the irresistible yearning to yield to the world's vanity. I am a slut, yes, of course I am. Unmistakably one! How can you tell? From my willingness to add sparkling powder to my eyes, to look intently at my lunch partner, to agreeing to cook for that someone one day. From my willingness to use my female wiles to my advantage, you know I am a slut. From my willingness to be invoked, incited, seduced by the world of money and power, you know I am a slut.
``You owe me a big dinner the next time I come to Singapore,'' M said.
``I owe you dinner everyday for the whole week your next trip here,'' I said, staring gleefully at my notebook filled with quotes and confidential information on a headline-grabbing mega leveraged buyout deal, which will out Nabisco to shame.
``That could be interesting,'' M said.
Oh dear, oh dear, what have I just done. I said it with the intent of fulfilling it.
I am a slut, or else, I won't be still in the office now, waiting for my headlines to go out.
I am a slut or else I wouldn't have giggled, munching my apple, to the way my colleague attempts to ``recast the world of money in bovine terms'' applying a famous series of cow jokes that have been used to define political systems to the financial markets I write about everyday.
``This is so apt, so apt,'' I thought to myself reading the commentary by him and slapping my thighs and laughing out loud.
So to end this, I give you the following which has pleasured my senses:-
Leveraged Buyouts
You have two cows. You come home from the fields one day to
find Henry Kravis chatting to your spouse at the dining-room
table. Two days later, you have no spouse, no farm, and no table.
Two guys the size of sumo wrestlers have saddled up the cows and
are riding them around the farmyard.
Currency Market
You have two cows. China has 1 trillion cows. Guess who sets the price of milk?
Bond Market
You have two cows. One is Brazilian, one is Australian. They yield 25 quarts of milk per day. That's half as much as three years ago, when you traded your less-lactiferous German and U.S. cows for them. You are thinking of swapping for a pair of Namibian cows. They only have three legs but, hey, they produce 26 quarts per day.
Derivatives
You have two cows. You repackage five of them into a
Collateralized Lactating Obligation, pay for a AAA credit rating,
slice the CLO into 10 pieces and sell it to investors, skimming
the cream from the milk for yourself. Three of the cows fall ill,
and the credit rating plummets. You get to keep the cream.
Hedge Funds
You have two cows. A guy in an open-necked shirt drives up
in his Bentley and offers to take care of them for you in return
for a year's supply of steak and 50 percent of their milk. They
won't be allowed to leave his compound for two years.
Six months later, you have half a cow, producing sour milk.
``You have to be willing to lose rump today to get rib-eye
tomorrow,'' the hedge-fund guy mumbles through a mouthful of
sirloin and champagne.
Economics
Assume two cows.
Carbon-Emissions Trading
You have two cows. They produce 1.2 tons of methane gas per
day. After a hefty donation to the re-election campaign of your
local representative, the government gives you enough emission
permits for six cows. You sell three permits, buy another cow,
and apply for a European Commission grant to build a methane-gas
power station.
Microsoft Corp.
You have one old, tired cow. A recent heart transplant may
have come too late to save the beast.
Google Inc.
You have no cows. You slap advertisements on everyone else's cows. The milk floods in. You use the proceeds to reinvent the cow.
Apple Inc.
Nobody wants your cows. You design the cutest little milk
bottle. Now, everybody wants your cows.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
You have 26,467 cows. They are strapped into the milking
machines 24/7. Some of them have more hay than they could ever
hope to eat. Others aspire to one day having more hay than they
could ever hope to eat. The cows with the most hay end up with
big government jobs.
Pension-Fund Management
You have two cows. How boring is that? You pay a month's
supply of milk to a consultant, who advises you to sell one cow
and buy two aardvarks instead. The aardvarks die. The consultant
charges you four months of your (now reduced) milk supply and
advises you to sell half of your remaining cow and buy a wombat.
The wombat dies. The consultant charges eight months of milk for
a copy of his new report, ``Two-Cow Strategies for Alleviating
the Impending Pensions Crisis.''
Russian Energy
You have two cows. Comrade, those cows are an environmental
hazard. We suggest you hand one of them over to us.
Credit-Default Swaps
You have two cows. You buy insurance against them dying, and tuck the contracts into the middle of that tottering pile of
documentation on your desk. One dark night, Henry Kravis sneaks
off with your cows. By the time you track down the paperwork,
your now worthless contracts have expired.
Interest-Rate Swaps
You have two cows. You pledge one of them to me as
collateral in a swap for some of my pigs. I pledge the cow to my
neighbor as collateral in a swap for some of his sheep. He
pledges the cow to his cousin as collateral in a swap for some of his cousin's goats. Better pray the livestock market doesn't
crash and we have to try and round up that cow. Commodities
You have lots of stocks and bonds, but no cows. Are you
crazy? Cows are the hot new market. Here, buy this exchange-
traded cow futures contract. It can't lose. It gained 40 percent
in the past six months.
Gold
You have two cows. You wear a cap you made out of tin foil
so that the tiny black helicopters can't read your thoughts. You
spend your days blogging about how the government's decision to
abandon the cattle standard in 1933 was part of a global
conspiracy by the world's central banks to destroy the value of
your herd.
