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Long ago and far away, a wizard found a way to sell air for gold. One of his tricks was to divide the air this way and that. Another trick was to dress the air up in fancy airs and thus convince the unwary they were buying something while buying only air wrapped in airs.
The ultimate fate of this wizard is not known, but his secrets were eventually discovered by others. Some realized that they could do the air trick one better by selling numbers divided this way and bundled that way. This went well until it was found that mere numbers, no matter how sliced, diced or stacked cannot support an economy. However, these hedge (fund?) wizards are ready to try again and are sure it will work this time. They swear that they can slice, stack, and bundle the numbers into solid foundations using their magic. If not, they solemnly promise, they will shore up the economy with stacks of our money.
Other warlocks discerned that they could do the numbers people one better. Why, they thought, sell all sorts of numbers when you can just make money with two, namely 0 and 1. They tried creating space for me and you, books for our face, and tweets for the twits. Then they created magical farms and other numerical objects to sell to folks for real cash.
Some claim that these warlocks cannot work their alchemy of turning booked faces and digital cows into cash forever, that someday they will have to provide a real product or people will stop buying. There are even witch hunters who claim that theses wizards of wall, book and tweet are wasting intellectual resources that could be used to solve real problems and create a solid, sustainable economy. Some even dare say that America is being led astray by these wizards to the land of wasteful narcissism.
But, these wizards should not be cursed. After all, they have found something even better than the philosopher’s stone-they have the power to turn numbers into gold.
Mike’s not a Kantian, he’s a Pythagorean!
Well, I’d say that the folks who do the money math are-they seem to think that numbers are reality. I wonder if they believe in reincarnation, too?
Yup, Pythagoras was right.
That was embarrassing, even for me. . .
Let’s recall, though, that the Pythagoreans refused to discuss one category of numbers, the one that included the length of the hypotenuse. Perhaps that’s the class into which financial numbers belong.
Are you talking about illegal activity or the system itself Mike? Cute post though. If I were to add to your metaphor I would say the government are shamans that turn numbers into lead as in the social security system. A mere monk with its simple bank could turn the same numbers into something at least a little useful like cheese. Amazingly though you have the choice to talk with wizards but the shamans take your numbers for you and give lead without such choice.
Not clear from this if you understand what a hedge fund is or how they work. Some are bad, some are good.
Actually, I threw in the Hedge (fund) Wizard because “hedge wizard” is an RPG term for a wizard who is just a local talent. The sort of fellow who whips up minor potions or identifies an item or two. The hedge fund reference actually doesn’t fit, but I could not resist.
This is great!!