Carta aberta a Angela Merkl

Por Benjamin Dover.

Liebe Angie,

Kudos on your bold move to ban naked short selling in Germany. It takes a woman of real testicular fortitude to replicate the U.S.’s temporary ban on short selling in 2008, a move that worked like a charm. Sure the U.S. ban smelled desperate, backed up demand that was loosed with a fury immediately afterwards, and spooked the markets into a further slide, but it did succeed in stopping short selling during the prohibited period. As your goosing friend, W., might say, “Mission Accomplished.”

Much like a long-dead white male German who shares your initial, you know that markets always work best when the government compels investors to play nice, which, to quote an even-longer dead white male Frenchman, “means nothing less than that [they] will be forced to be free.” And excoriating speculators whose trades expose inefficiencies and re-align prices with values was a masterstroke. If only you’d connect the dots and start blaming the Jews, you could activate the Indonesian playbook that worked so well during the late-90’s Asian financial crisis.
Since at the moment you’re preoccupied with not dealing with this crisis, you may not have considered all the other societal problems that could be solved in similar fashion. Here’s a quick list:

Sanitation: Rather than having to deal with the pesky task of collecting, hauling and disposing of garbage, just attack the source of the problem: the vermin that congregate in and around the garbage. Remove the pests and the garbage takes care of itself.

Public Health: Treating disease is a costly, time-consuming and often complicated process. Instead, ignore the disease and focus on the symptoms, preferably the ones caused by the treatment rather than the disease. For example, cancer patients often lose their hair. Prescribe Rogaine and watch the cancer disappear.

Mortality: People have been trying to conquer this one for millennia, but no one’s tried the obvious: imprison undertakers. These vultures take advantage of the dead by profiting from their demise. Stop the undertakers and, ipso facto, life becomes eternal.

Crime: Confiscate all valuables. With nothing left to steal, thievery withers away.

Evil: Ban the media from reporting about bad things that happen. Once you’ve killed the messenger the message ceases to exist. And without the message, it didn’t happen.

Ugliness: It’s in the eye of the beholder, stupid. Ugly people aren’t really ugly — they’re just perceived as ugly by others. Force society to compliment every snaggle-toothed boohog on his or her appearance. Problem solved.

Erectile Dysfunction: Indict pharmaceutical companies that sell Viagra.

Incompetent Market Regulators: Crucify speculators.

I think you get the picture, Angie. There’s no end to all the problems that can be solved by applying your simple logic.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen unwahr,

Benjamin