There truly is magic in this world. Magicians, too, and they seem to be working together. How else could a handful of seemingly ordinary men make trillions of dollars disappear in the space of a few weeks? And their magic act has also included making Republican prospects for retaining the White House vanish into thin air right before our eyes! Well, that last one was not hard to see coming, what with our current Magician-in-Chief having made America’s good reputation shrink to the size of a thimble, but the money thing, that was pure Houdini! Nobody saw that one coming. And the beauty of it was, they didn’t make any of their own dough vanish, they’re all still rich as King Midas and twice as greedy. No point being a magician and making yourself poor.
To most of us, the workings of the world of high finance have long been an arcane mystery. We watch as this magician grows incredibly wealthy dealing with something called junk (!) bonds, or that one makes a killing offering stock in a dot com company with no actual product or any service of any discernible use at all and yet somehow getting ordinary people to line up and hand over huge wads of money. What an act! Mesmerism at its best! Yet other magicians go to war with one another like wizards in fantasy novels, taking over companies that don’ feel like being taken over, squashing two or more companies into one giant one and making a large fortune before the new company had produced so much as a pencil. How do they do that?
How that works exactly only the Financial Magicians know. Perhaps they cast a spell and change the rules of mathematics and economics when they add a bunch of zeroes on the end of numbers. Maybe invoke the name of J.P Morgan or Adam Smith or something. Anyway, don’t try this at home, boys and girls, since the regular rules of math always apply for the rest of us, no matter how hard we try to stretch and expand our budgets. Nor can we award ourselves generous bonuses of other people’s money, which the magicians do every year at Christmas time, appropriately enough. You and I are not magicians and must make do within our limited means.
We can, however, enjoy their wondrous show. For example, this latest trick of the disappearing trillions is fascinating. Like all great magicians, they’ve got their audience on the edge of our seats, some of us crying out that this time they’ve gone too far, this is beyond show business now. But wait, ladies and gentlemen, just wait. You will be oohing and ahhing before you know it. You’ll soon see those trillions reappear again, but this time in different people’s pockets! And certainly not yours! This is no dog and pony act with a coin pulled out of somebody’s ear, this is major prestidigitation! The world watches with bated breath for the magicians to do their stuff and chant their chants and make the money reappear. Right now would be a good time before the joke gets taken too far. This is gonna be good! We’re waiting… we’re ready… our oohs and ahhs are on the tips of our tongues. Can we get a little Presto-Change-O here? Some Magic Aroobaloo? Stop toying with us, wizards! We’re ready now.