Monday, April 07, 2008

We Need a Bailout Package for Dealers in Talismans!

Quick, notify Congress! Get the press all wound up! Summon the Secretary of the Treasury! It's a 3 AM phone call!

"Mr. President, the bottom has just fallen out of the lucky charms...no sir, there's no spillage of milk, we don't need the EPA, it's a different kind of lucky charms. It's the kind you buy and keep in your pocket to give you good luck."

Today's WSJ has a page one article about the Great Lucky Charm Crash of 2008. Apparently, the people of Thailand had gone on a spending spree, trying to buy luck. As luck would have it, their luck ran out.
Last year, prices for the small discs inscribed with an ancient mythological figure soared as ordinary Thais -- some hoping for good luck, others looking to make a fast baht -- forked over big-time...In a pattern now painfully familiar to investors the world over, the boom was so great -- some amulets sold for as much as $75,000 -- that the bust could only be close behind. A glut, combined with growing suspicions that many amulets hadn't been properly blessed by Buddhist monks, has blown the bottom out of the market in the past few weeks. Most of the little clay objects, part of a billion-dollar-plus industry just a few months ago, are now practically worthless.
Thank goodness this didn't happen in the US. The dingledorks in Congress would be demanding a multibillion dollar bailout of the lucky charm industry.

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