KEY POINTS:
Once upon a time in a land far, far away from here, there lived a people who were pretty rich, all-in-all. They ate French fries and tapped on iPhones and lived lives that were like the best bits of a Simpsons episode, on a good day. And that
was just fine.
Until it wasn't.
You see, the big boys who had the most toys lived only to hedge, option and lend. Kind of like their First Dude of Coin, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who left Goldman Sachs with about US$500 million in his pocket. In case you don't have your Master of the Universe financial calculator handy, that's somewhere between a bah-zillion and obscene.
That's why their good ole' boy President told them to just keep riding that bull. (They say that kind of thing in Texas.) Okay, in truth, he didn't say or do anything. For eight years.
And one day, that became a problem, a really big problem. It was so big the President finally felt compelled to say something, something beautifully presidential: "If money doesn't loosen up, this sucker could go down," was what he really did say at the height of the crisis to calm his bull.
People looked up from their Gameboys and iPods, bought on credit, and wondered just who was the sucker. Some actually wrote that quote in their passport so the next time they travel abroad everyone can see their country's disabilities and be nicer to them.
In a blink, their lifestyle morphed from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? to Who's the Biggest Loser? Even important people texted :( to each other. In short, as stated so eloquently by America's chief executive, the world's financial markets were constipated - and it was time to eat our legumes.
Cue Congress and The Plan, also known as "the crap sandwich" by the Minority Leader, or as a "cow patty with a marshmallow in the centre" by a Georgia congressman.
Many felt a scatological congressional dress-up day coming on.
Despite all this, two guys had been jostling in the wings to take over the President's job, hoping to think up even better quotes.
Which begs the question, what human-bean with an elevator that goes all the way to the top would volunteer to take on two wars, two hurricane-ravaged coastal areas and a worldwide financial bowel movement problem? Don't answer that.
It seems that one guy, the war hero, missed his old appellation. So he jumped into Superman tights, made a posture like I'm a Little Teapot with both fists on his hips and said, "I am suspending my campaign" so he could save the day. It was so exciting.
Except he didn't do either - save anything, or suspend anything. His campaign commercials kept running, his offices kept running, his running mate kept, um, doing whatever she's been doing while seeing Russia from her house, and this candidate ran off to Washington - that is, after he talked to Bono, did another television interview and made another speech.
The only thing is, he didn't get a chance to read the three-page summary of the bailout deal because he was so busy suspending his campaign. So he sat there in big, hairy meetings without saying a peep.
Cut to the halls of Congress where it was becoming an old Batman rerun fight scene. POW! We need more oversight. BLAM! Stop foreclosing on poor French-fry eaters. BIFF! When did free market kings become socialists? And stuff like that.
The congressmen who were facing the closest re-election races were the very ones who were afraid to pull out their pens. Funny how that works.
All the while the Commander and Chief roamed through the halls mumbling "Giddy-up!" at the backs of confused congressmen as they headed into negotiations. It was beautiful. It was leadership out the wazoo.
But faster than you can say voters-hate-you, this first plan went down the gurgler. "Now what?" the world wailed. They were plugged up. This was uncomfortable.
This was no task for a mere man or woman, or even Sarah Palin. There was only one option left.
In a quintessential political diuretic, unprecedented in the history of government, Republicans, Democrats and Mavericks turned unanimously to unite behind the one single person in America they knew could actually calm and restore worldwide confidence. They called Oprah.
"Honeys," she said, after hugging each congressman for padding their bill from 110 pages to 450 in two days. "You do know, if you guys don't loosen up, this sucker will go down."
She and financier Warren Buffet smiled at each other across the couch, a new shares portfolio bulging out of their pockets fatter than God's.
"Yes, Ma'am", all 535 members of the US Congress replied docilely in unison, ignoring the distant sound of flushing.
* www.traceybarnett.co.nz
