Annual Report 2008/09

To the stock-holders, staff, and concerned loved-ones:

Well, it has been quite a year for the global economy, and for Acquired Immunity Group Incorporated. Sometimes I have to smash myself in the face, just to see if I’ve lapsed into some kind of sobbing, fear-induced coma. But no, I’m very much awake. You will be pleased to hear that our firm has had another astonishing quarter, generating record levels of Negative Growth (NG) and amassing spectacular pools of Inverse Revenue (IR) on behalf of shareholders. In addition, our Investor Panic Index (IPI) has broken all previous marks, leading to a Fiscal Credibility Deficit Margin (FCDM) of 280 percent. Creditor anger levels have never been as healthy, nor has the acrid cloud of doom ever wafted so near. And yet some of you are not happy. I know this, because you are camped outside my house. You are a long way away, behind the electrified fence, but I know you are there because when you shout you frighten my game-hens

My Leadership: Decisive? Yes.

I like to think I have been a strong, decisive CEO. I have been compared to Captain James Cook, (and not just because I got beaten up on a trip to Hawaii.) Yet sheer brilliance is sometimes not enough. It is true that many experts failed to foresee the impact of speculation in mortgage-backed derivatives and its effect on the banking system. I was one who did, and as proof I’d like to point you towards my 2003 white-paper: Speculation in Mortgage-backed Derivatives: How It Will Make Us Rich As Popes.

Obviously, many of you are worried about your future, and you look to me, your superior, for guidance. Let me tell you what I see right now. At this very moment I’m sitting in my den, in my Japanese memory-foam chair. The financial district burns like a sun in the distance, turning night into unquenchable daylight. Traders, naked save for crude loincloths stapled together from charred office supplies, dance on the roofs of skyscrapers while holding signs written in their own blood, or perhaps the blood of a co-worker. “Send brie!” That was one of them. The authorities are paralysed. They have cordoned off the entire district and left it as a kind of abode of anarchy. The whole scene casts my office in a lovely warm glow. The point is: even when things up close seem dire, if you sit far enough away, everything seems fine.

The World Economy: WTF?

The state of the world economy has left our company vulnerable, moody, and a little needy. A chart of the global economy presented by the World Trade Federation (WTF) shows how monetary gravity has caused world stocks to fall below their 90-day moving average. The “head-and-shoulders” pattern shows the market shrugging—as if to say, ‘Whaaaaa ..? I don’t know. Why don’t you put your money in a ban … Oh no wait! Don’t do that!’ The real question is: who is to blame? Greed-engorged traders? The leaders of the financial institutions who built speculative investments on frangible mortgages? You? The answer may surprise you.

Your Concerns: Important?

I have received many letters outlining your concerns about our future. Many of them were hilarious and cheered me up a great deal. 12-year-old Chrissie Walkin writes:

Dear Sir

My Daddy lost his job in the bank and I was very sad. Daddy took me on a birthday trip to imagination Disneyland. It was fun. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, neo-liberal economists have preached the merits of an unfettered market. Ironically, this free-market experiment has left us on the brink of both economic and environmental collapse, and forced us to consider a program of state intervention much closer to Marxism. Perhaps it is time to find a sustainable balance between market freedom and state involvement. Your thoughts?

Chrissie

To that I say ‘Shut up little girl’. Also, if you’re so smart, why are you only 12?

The bare fact is that a million economists working for a million years on a million stock-screens could not have predicted the terrifying chain-reaction that would result from granting an Appalachian racoon farmer a loan to buy his first relaxin’-shack.

Getting Through One Day at a Time Towards a New Tomorrow

And that’s just one of my ideas. I still expect the road ahead to be rough and paved with the skulls and pelvises of the less fortunate. But things will get better, of that I’m confident. ‘How?’ you ask, as you take another limp pucker on your corncob pipe and adjust the strap on your banjo. Oh, I don’t know, maybe because of a little thing called Inversed Gravity. Inversed Gravity Theorem states that whatever goes down eventually has to come back up again. Planes, submarines, even whales, all use IGT. It’s just good science. Economics is a precise forecasting discipline and just as with meteorology, astrology, or political contests, it is possible to tell the exact future by using a few precise measurements.

But even taking IGT into consideration the time ahead will be tough. I cannot lie to you. Not any more. Many of you wonder how you will even feed your family. The news there, I can tell you, is good. For although the prices of many food items have soared dramatically during the past few quarters, the price of cake has remained relatively stable.

So let us all eat cake and look forward to brighter times.