Thursday, June 26, 2008

Long ago,

in galaxy that is not very far away, there was an aspiring scientist who studied hard and went to the school of hard knocks. He always wanted to build the next generation airplane and he kicked ass in school, 4.0 GPA and PhD program what not.

In 199x, to his dismay, he realized the world was about to betray him. People of indecent talents were rewarded, for no skills whatsoever but be in the right time at the right place. The society was blinded by greed and lack of education. It placed emphasis in non-good producing sectors and allocated TREMENDOUS percentage of its population in the pursuit of incredibly wasteful projects. Money was printed out of a hole in the wall and was given to all the no-talent in the world.

The man later admitted he is to some extent guilty in joining this folly, yet he said "he would rather betray the world first than the world betrays him". So off he went first writing useless softwares and next, learned to "shuffle papers".

In the years that followed, fully aware of what he did, he earned and saved what he could, which was accumulated at nearly 90x the rate of his comparable peers, while keeping an eye on when the unstable system would collapse so he can bail from the proverbial "exit", where he sat close by at all times.

Today, he says, this is the incredible IMBALANCE that all the leaders were talking about. It's just that there is no easy way to explain it to the commonfolks. That in the past 10-15 years they were engaging in (inadvertent) fraud and wasted their mortal life ruining themselves. There simply is no easy solution, if at all. Now jobs are getting destroyed, and the mirage will evaporate. Economic jargons were coined around this phenomenon, and yet the mirror is always there for those who want to look, and avoid holding the proverbial bags.

The scientist is alive and well, conducting his daily experimentation in the stock market today, while hiding the bulk of his wealth elsewhere out of reach in case an exhorbitant tax is put in place to take back the notes that are not supposed to be out there. And he sends his regards to you all. He also says he might just work on something useful, good-producing, when he's done experimenting.

9 comments:

Greenie said...

Welcome to the club !

:)

dvs112 said...

It is heartening to see that the scientist is still willing to help the common folks weather the incoming storm.

I hope that once the storm is over, you are able to build the next generation flying machine that you always dreamed about and not waste time putting douchebags into their "dream houses"

All I want to do is open a small business and product something tangible. The people who love me the most have become so enamored by the Financial industry in the last 4 years, that they believe it is the only way to get fame and fortune. Hence, there is insane amount of pressure on me to do a MBA in Finance from one of the "Top" schools. To them I am a loser if I don't get that MBA and become a banker.

Knowing what I do, I know I am jumping into the abyss by pursuing the MBA/banker path. Yet, have to do it to keep the loved ones happy

Greenie said...

Among the people I know, only ones who understand the game that has been going on were ex-scientists and were often born outside US of A. Economists and MBAs, on the other hand, have the least clue.

I tried to explain the whole credit industry to many of my friends in CA to persuade them not to buy houses, but had little luck. The system makes it sure that the 'commonfolks' do not get it. It is the misinformation spewed out by media and the talking heads that balances any explanation you can do to them.

Anonymous said...

Regards back to ya - good post :)

Spiral said...

This is very good post and enjoyed reading it. I've tried to tell people that I know in this department and church about what is coming since last year but they looked at me as lunatics. Yesterday, one guy came to me with serious face saying his fidelity mutual fund lost 20%. I felt really guilty that money I made may come from his account. At the end of the talk, he still believes FED/gov can/should do a lot and I lost my words. He asked me why I'm in this country and I asked back where else I can go.

MTGSPY said...

That is the MOST COMMON problem when everyone is drunk with idiocy and debauchery. :D

A well intentioned suggestion will be met with "Why are you in this country/company then" or "If things go that badly money is the LAST thing we'll have to worry" or some word twisting / off context loud whining.

There was never, ever, a question "Why did you say that", especially because I am NOT known to be a Jehovah Witness-type of guy.

Emmanuel said...

freaking awesome. could almost be a literary masterpiece, just needs a few spelling and grammer tweaks, but still, i wanna take this story and cite it on my web page.

just to be clear, is this scientist you?

MTGSPY said...

hahahahah. It could be anyone! If it describes you you are welcome to take it and claim you write it. I am just trying to help put words in mouth, in poor grammar, in people's mouth. :D

risingcream said...

Hehe I knew you were awesome. Good choice btw or you could've ended up like the unibomber