And she wondered...

There were three boxes at her feet.  One was black, perfectly square, dull metal.  It was heavy, much heavier than its size would indicate.  The second was wrapped in ugly paper with a garish design.  The third was a perfect small thing with a bow.

Which one which one which one she thought.  She no longer trusted her taste.  Or anyone elses. And she thought she might be fooled or maybe it was a test.   The inside and the outside would surely be different.  Throw a coin, just grab one, smash them all...she nudged the heavy one with her toe.  Of course, she really did not get to choose at all.  She was just watching them. Just watching.  And waiting.  

She liked something different each day, he liked the same.  Ham sandwich ham sandwich ham sandwich.  Why was everything happening in threes?  In reality it was ham sandwich every day. But there was no more ham so it had to be different.  She felt another tremor in her lip as they rounded the corner.

Val looked out the side window.  She saw the reflection of the packages as they tipped a bit when the tires screeched.  She did not care anymore that they were going too fast.  She was used to it.

And then dear readers, Missmarketcrash woke and Val evaporated from her thoughts.  She peeled the nappy off of the little one and started the day.  And she wondered.

Reframing the Probability Dimension

So, we are effectively in between presidents, the banks are toppling again, and a miraculous plane lands safely in the Hudson river to divert attention from the bank topic.  Thank goodness for excellent pilots, random events, and geese.  Miracles do happen.

Yesterday Missmarketcrash read "Global Risks 2009", a report issued by the World Economic Forum.  It did not contain much outside of Missmc's knowledge or expectations, but, it did have some rather nice charts with a kind of 1950's design flair.  The part I really enjoyed was the bit on presenting statistics, or, as they put it, "reframing the probability dimension" -

"Rather than specifying the chance of a disaster occurring next year is great than 1 in 100, experts could indicate that the chances of a disaster occurring in the next 25 years exceeds 1 in 5."

Missmc loves reframing the probability dimension with regard to The Bank Thing.  But in relation to the bank thing, everyone is under some kind of agreement that this is the month things are falling to bits.  The Obama uncertainty variable adds into this as we anticipate his inaugural ride into the presidency in his specially designed high-security limousine made by none other than General Motors.  Reframing the probability dimension on the bank thing pretty much gives the outcome that failure of banks is a certain thing.

Unless what?  Well - unless one can reframe the political dimension it seems certain.  The idea that has been floated about in Britain is of creating one Bad Bank.  That absolves the government in a certain way by taking the enormous pile of hard-to-value-and-hard-to-liquidate assets and putting it in another entity which gives  the illusion of being separate from the government.  

And I would just so enjoy designing the letterhead for the Bad Bank.  We could even get a public works project out of it and build a Bad Bank Building.  Gosh...it could almost become something fun....