business

An April Fools’ Game

By on • ( 62 Comments )

It’s said that a fool and his money are soon parted. Well, this is April Fools’ Day, so how about if we play a game involving money? Don’t worry, if you’re wise you won’t lose anything.

In this game, I’ll assert four sets of two premises each, related to money. Then you’ll try to guess which premise in each set is true, and which is an April Fools’ joke. But be forewarned, there’s a joker in the deck—in some sets, both premises may be true, or both may be a joke.

SCORING

If you get every set right, you’re a financial genius. If you guess three out of four correctly, you have sharp business acumen. If you only guess two correctly, you need financial help. Send me a thousand simoleans, and I’ll send you some financial advice. If you guess only one correctly, you’re a fool with your money. Please send it to me, today. If you guess none correctly, you probably have no money. So never mind.

Answers found at bottom of post.

FIRST SET

1) Banks in California are no longer stockpiling vials of H20. This is due to a sudden surplus in this erstwhile rare element. Lately, H20 has seemingly appeared from nowhere, literally falling from the California sky. This has caused its price to crash on the commodities market, leading to several bank failures.

2) Many areas of California have truly been inundated with H20 this season. This includes Donner Pass, which has already received 714 inches of precipitation. Their full-season average is 360 inches, and their record is 812 inches (set in 1952).

SECOND SET

1) The City of San Francisco, California has formed a reparations committee, tasked with exploring the payment of reparations to its black residents, for damage caused by slavery and systemic racism. After holding hearings, and listening to a long line of black San Franciscans expostulate wholeheartedly for reparations, the committee has made more than 100 recommendations. And the recommendations have received enthusiastic support from the city’s board of supervisors. These proposed reparations, for every eligible black adult, include: 1) A payment of $5 million, 2) the elimination of all personal debt, including credit card debt, 3) guaranteed annual incomes of at least $97,000 for 250 years, and 4) homes in San Francisco for just $1.00 per black family. It is estimated that such reparations will cost every non-black family in the city a mere $600,000.

2) Also present at the reparations committee hearings was a line of thousands of white San Franciscans, who expressed their unbridled eagerness to pay reparations to their fellow black citizens, to assuage guilt over slavery.

THIRD SET

1) Recently, the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), located in Santa Clara, California, collapsed under the weight of foolish management decisions. 85% of the deposits in this bank were uninsured, and many of these uninsured deposits were owned by large tech companies. The federal government has decided to waive its $250,000 FDIC insurance limit, and is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to make every depositor whole. This will cost the average American taxpayer at least $1,200 each.

2) Silicon Valley Bank managers in California received bonuses of up to $140,000, just hours before it collapsed. Meanwhile, it’s United Kingdom division paid out over $18 million in bonuses, just days after it was rescued by HSBC bank.

FOURTH SET

1) The average American is 39-years old, and is in debt $96 thousand dollars. That’s $2,462 of debt for every year the average American has been in existence.

2) The universe is 13.8 billion years old, and the U.S. national debt is $31 trillion dollars. That’s $2,246 of debt for every year the universe has been in existence.

ANSWERS

First Set: Premise #1 is an April Fools’ joke. But Premise #2 is true. While the precipitation amounts may seem implausible, the precipitation is in the form of snow.

Second Set: Premise #1 is true. Premise #2 is an April Fools’ joke.

Third Set: Premise #1 is an April Fools’ joke, because taxpayers will not be paying for the bailout of SVB bank. Rather, the cost will be passed down to every bank account holder in the USA, in the form of increased bank fees. Premise #2, concerning the bonuses, is true.

Fourth Set: Both premises are true. And I hope it helps to put the national debt into perspective, so that its astronomically large number becomes universally relatable to the average American.

Categories: business

62 replies »

              • The suburb city I live in, Leander, was at one time the fastest growing city in the US a couple of years ago. A lot of people are moving here. Wait til they find out we don’t really have much more water than California.

                Liked by 2 people

                Reply

                  • I think one issue is that the housing prices in Silicon Valley are crazy and apparently housing around Austin is cheaper, for now. I am relying on this massive herd migration to drive up prices here.

                    With my first house in Leander, I got thrice what I paid for it when I sold it. And I brilliantly did this while interest rates were at the bottom when I got into the next mortgage. It may have actually just been dumb luck, but I’ll take it.

                    Liked by 1 person

                    Reply

                    • Homes are expensive all over California, not just Silicon Valley. If we sold our home and moved to someplace in the East, we could use the proceeds to buy a mansion. Well, maybe not in Leander anymore.

                      Liked by 2 people

                    • I watch Flip or Flop, which takes place in the LA area. I am always amazed that they can flip a 1500 sq. ft. house for $600k – $800k. That money gets you a lot more house in a much nicer neighborhood around here.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    • Exactly. And many of those homes are very old. Like, 100 years old. It’s not as expensive out here in the desert, but with people who have work-at-home jobs fleeing the LA area, our real estate prices have shot up quite a bit.

                      Liked by 1 person

  2. On a similar note to the SVB inanity, Virgin Orbit is in dire financial condition and their goal is apparently to make sure the inept executives have golden parachutes before the company completely collapses. Makes perfect sense. I need to find a company that I can (literally) run into the ground and get several million dollars in bonuses for my effort.

    Liked by 1 person

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  4. Responding from under twelve feet of ice just yards from the largest di-hydrogen oxide reserve in the People’s Bureaucratic Republik of California could be considered cheating. However, my money was indeed more safely deposited in the Hollywood branch of Silicone Valley Bank, which more securely finances Southern California plastic surgery startups. And I wouldn’t worry about all that debt. When it becomes cheaper to heat your home by burning banknotes, American money will be so worthless that it’ll only take a couple of pairs of foreign-made shoes to pay off that $31-trillion.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • That’s a pretty deep layer of ice. But nothing compared with the 60 feet at Donner Pass.

      You’re lucky Big Tech has a lot of friends in Washington.

      Thanks for the tip. I think I’ll start investing in Uighur-made Nikes.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      • I haven’t been over Donner in a while, but I can imagine. The year-rounders are called “mole-people”. The “chimneys” on roofs are actually winter entries.
        I live in the “Banana Belt”. Still some natural light through the south-facing windows.

        BIG tech in DC… yeah. I think Stormy Daniels was very popular.

        And I’d run with that investment advice.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

          • Then the floods are on the way. The sunnier areas at lake-level are already melted back. And the lake has already recovered all of its “epic, worst in 2,000-years drought!!!” water volume… just like the last time. (It was far lower in the mid 90s, before overflowing the dam in ’97).

            I’ll have to post some photos from the area. Not so much skiing this winter because of the terrible weather and early season ice/snow. Most of my skiing companions are hobbling around on crutches… a torn ACL, a broken hip, and a fractured tibia. And I’m always criticized for using free-heel gear. Ha!

            Liked by 1 person

            Reply

            • Drought and deluge are a pattern that repeats over and over in California. I remember stuff like this back in the 60s and 70s. Back then they said we were going into an ice age. Now they think it’s a sign of global warming.

              I don’t know much about skiing, but “free-heel” sounds like a less dangerous approach to the sport. I get the sense that the ski season will be lasting into July, this year.

              Liked by 1 person

              Reply

              • The southwestern climate has been in a desert pattern since ancient Lake Lahontan dried up at the end of the last ice age. Somehow, I don’t think any amount of green energy or carbon capture is going to bring back the dire wolves and mammoths from those times. I guess “drought” means that people want to grow rice and almonds in an over-developed desert. And I can’t even fathom the reasoning behind California’s unwillingness to develop the reservoir capacity to save a little of the water from the region’s periodic deluges.
                But… not my problem. Plenty of water here. 😝

                Free heel is old school. Just what I learned from my dad, and apparently what he learned from his dad. Had to search for this. I’m in it…

                Liked by 1 person

                Reply

    • It’s strange, but true. I’ve done a little research into this. Reparations laws are nothing new, but they have always been ruled unconstitutional by a split Supreme Court, with conservatives against, and liberals for. So with a current 6-3 majority of conservatives in the Supreme Court, I doubt this reparations proposal will ever come to fruition, even if passed. On the other hand, one day liberals will hold the majority on the Supreme Court. That could lead to very high taxes for those who are not black, in order to pay reparations. So now might be a good time to identify as black, on every application you complete that asks for your race.

      Liked by 1 person

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