Once upon a time there was a little chicken, the pet of a boy who often cried wolf, who had become convinced, through the poultryfied lens of pure animal intuition, that the sky was falling and made a business of going around telling all the other dumb beasts in the barnyard just exactly that.
At first his woolly neighbors, and even some of the insects and snakes that abounded in nearby forests, were perfectly convinced of the little chicken's hypothesis. After all, for the wild creatures it was late in the season and food was growing scarce. For their domesticated brothers and sisters, well, you know, lately the Farmer in the Dell was having marital difficulties and often appeared late or only half completed his watering, feeding and bedding activities so naturally things seems somewhat cock-eyed and likely to grow worse, especially in the dim light of the usual bad weather.
But, after a while, as the hours, days and weeks past by all the folks down on the farm got mightily sick of hearing about a disaster that never completely made its appearance and started to seriously discount the veracity of the little chicken's disquisitions.
Oh well, you know, things down in the Valley of The Jolly Green Giant did slow down quite a bit. After all, it was winter: the wind blew, snow crept in through the cracks in the old tumbled down barn and the hay grew stale. Then there was mud season and the usual growing piles of stinking manure but eventually spring arrived and things got back to normal, at least as much normal as can be expected up on Dead Man's Creek.
Perhaps the greatest relief came when that sly old fox what lived in Tubb o' Crock Cave up by Pilomoosepoop Mountain came down, rung that little chicken's neck and carried him away for dinner. Everyone sagely nodded their head and unanimously agreed that, after all, chicken little was telling the truth: FOR HIM, indeed, the sky was falling!
Another curious analogy might be constructed as follows:
ReplyDeleteYou (the banks) are out for a Sunday drive when that old bald tire finally gives out and springs a leak. Getting the rusted lugnuts off the wheel to replace it with the spare (which is one of those temporary minature ones) turns out to be a real pain-in-the-ass. So there you are furiously pumping air back into the leaking tire in the hope that the next station down the road has a mechanic (geitner et al.) on duty who can get the lugnuts off and put on the spare. Of course the old tire (de-regulated financial market) is really too worn out and useless to repair and you can't afford to get a whole set of new ones but with luck you might get home in time for dinner!
If things turn out as you hope you can congratulate yourself for "forward thinking" and excellent crisis management.