Investment Banking: It’s a bit like Lego

The other night at the pub I got a very interesting lesson in the art of Investment Banking. I thought I would share it with you.

Investment Banking is like Lego. In a Lego set you have 5 or 6 different colours and lots of different size blocks made out of those colours. Each of those colours represents a product and each different sized block within that colour represents… something else. I can’t remember what he said; I think Girls Aloud came on so I stopped to have a bit of a dance.

But anyway, so you have all these different blocks made out of different colors that can be rearranged into a magnitude of different things. But the fundamentals of all structures are the same… just constructed in different ways.

On Friday night, while nursing not one but two glasses of wine I found this analogy fascinating. So on Saturday morning after my trip to KFC I figured I would try and expand on what was explained to me. This is what I came up with.

The world economy is like a Lego village, you have the town part and the houses/suburb part. The economic down turn is when you’ve run out of blocks. All construction stops and all the Lego Men loose their jobs. Mum won’t buy you more blocks and feed a false village, so you have no choice but to evict your Lego men and make them all live together in a small one bedroom flat on the wrong side of the village. You use the blocks from their now empty houses to expand the town. This is called 'Repossession' and 'Public Sector Spending'.

Now all of this could have been avoided. The Lego village was working just dandy until the neighbour came over to the play. The motto to the story is quite a simple one. Don’t let your children, who are the master craftsman of such a complex system, play with kids called Gordon.

Industrial Slip ‘n’ Slide

It’s amazing how you forget things completely until something triggers it. I recently became friends with an old neighbor on Crackbook.

While most of my teenage years were spent on planing how I was going to skip the country, I spared the odd afternoon or 2 for the neighboring hood-rats. Between tearing around the streets on our bikes, tormenting each other with water booms and leaving a trail of destruction through the homes of the folk who were stupid enough to let us in, we also found time to peg a huge blue tarp to my front lawn and create an industrial sized Slip ‘n’ Slide. See the example below for actual size.

The Slip ‘n’ Slide kept us amused for most of the summer holidays one year. It started off tame. It was nothing but 3 kids taking it in turn to go down the tarp with the hose flowing behind us. Needless to say that got boring after the first hour. Phase two involved the resident four year olds, one of which was my brother. After we had convinced Kelton and little Chloe that it was completely safe and we would catch them at the bottom, they too started going down the tarp with smiles on their faces and the wind in their hair. We could convince these two to go down any which way we liked. They loved being included in our game for once so getting them to go down backwards on a body board without holding on was a piece of cake and didn't faze them in the slightest!

Now while this was fun, again it grew boring, so we entered phase 3. Soap yourself up with shampoo first for maximum speed. We three elder children tried it first and for quite some time this was the only entertainment we needed. Even our parents would come out and watch the spectacle of three kids, 2 of which were teenagers, throwing themselves down a hill at full speed covered head to toe in shampoo. Yes, it truly was as ridiculous as it sounds but boy was it fun! If you took a run up you would slide the whole the tarp, hit the grass and keep going. If you hit that tarp too fast, the only thing stopping you at the end of the grass was the gutter and then tarred road.

One afternoon we inevitably started to get tired of covering ourselves in shampoo. We needed a new game. I believe it was Harry who called, “Let’s race Kelton and Chloe!” Placing out bets on which small child would hit the now muddied grass first; we soaped them up and screamed “GO!” No words can describe what happened next. One minute there were smiles and laughter, the next the clouds came over. I don’t remember who won, all I remember is two screaming four year olds and three set of parents giving us the telling off of a life time.

Needless to say the tarp was banished to the garage and that was the end of that game. Bike ride anyone?

Save a Polar Bear... Kill a bottle!

For the first time in my working days I have come across a passive-aggressive note in the office that I didn’t write. (I’m a little jealous they beat me too it.)

Big Trouble in Little China

Wow, I don’t quite know where to start with this article. Are things that bad in China that the little people need to band together and set up their own munchkin village?

You can just imagine it. A little man dressed in Town Crier gear, standing on a cereal box laboriously swinging a dinner bell and screaming, “Little people of China unite! Let us live together in our own village. We can reside in Mushrooms, dress up in Fairytale costumes and show those big people we’re no laughing matter!”

Kunming, a bit like Smurf Village or Munchkinland is completely self sufficient. Constantly on guard from giant lizards (mainly the blue tongue and gecko) and other large threats, the residents felt the need to protect and serve their community. The residents have taken advantage of state of the art equipment designed for size appropriate training.

The 120 residents have been able to train and build their own police force and fire brigade to fight off these predators. Understandably, the cost of this was large and to help compensate their efforts the state kindly donates size appropriate vehicles.

Currently the Kunming legal system is working closely with Storyland. One of Storyland’s most wanted criminals made her way over to Kunming to try and avoid capture. Little Miss Muffet, know for her break and enter attempts is now being held in the Kunming state prison and awaits extradition.

It seems that while the world mocks the compound (their words not mine) the residents are very happy with what they have achieved.

Naught Words in Public Places

I’ve been told that I write very amusing stories. I’ve also been told that I have a gift. I’d say it’s more down to having too much time on my hands but hey, I’ll run with gift! Hehe

However all those complements aside, I was quite perplexed a few moments ago when I was told, that seeing as my blog is not a profession blog I should really let it all hang out and take some chances. I shouldn’t stop at the PC stop sign nor should I sensor my writing with words like, ‘heck’ and ‘flipping.’ This person went on to tell me that I should even invite those who I rip the heck out of into my magic online world as to provoke a response to my online banter.

I just think that there is no need for a public dirt fight. Further to this, why must I swear? I think I get my point across just fine and dandy without using naughty words.
However seeing as this as been brought to my attention, going forward I will try to be a little more Avant-garde and think outside the box. I don’t think that swearing is the way to do this but I’ll give it a try.

FUCK, SHIT, CUNT!
Were you offended, in an arty-farty way that left you wondering and desiring more? Like a leather-bound man in an S & M club with a feather up his ass?
No? Didn’t think so….