Wanna Buy a Stinky Sack?

The Geithner plan made me think of an old joke. It probably started as an ethnic joke; in the 70s, when I first heard it, it was a "moron" joke -- which at the time was the polictically correct alternative to ethnic jokes. Now that we're not supposed to make fun of morons, I'm not sure what kind of joke it is.

Anyway, this [member of group we're mocking] walks up to another [member of the same group] holding a sack. He says, "If you can guess how many chickens are in this sack, I'll give you all six of them."

And the other [member of the group] says, "Twelve?"

The public-private partnership deal reminds me of that one, only instead with Goldman Sachs alumni as the hated group:


One Goldman Sachs alum (now a hedge-fund manager) says to the other Goldman Sachs alum (now the Treasury Secretary), "So, Tim, there's this sack. Our friends want to get rid of it. It smells bad. It's making them sick. It might be full of shit, might be full of gold, hard to say. Anyway, I'm going to pick a number out of a hat, and whatever number it is, that's the price. We divide by seven and then split that in half. You with me so far?"

"Sure, divide random number by seven, split in half," says the Secretary. "I think I know where we're going with this. But won't people point out that if the problem with the bag is how bad it smells, it's probably full of shit?"

"No no no," says the hedge-fund manager, "I mean, obviously there's some shit that's come in contact with the sack at some point. But the chances of it being a bag full of shit are nearly impossible. I did the math. So anyway we each put in one-fourteenth, you lend me the other six-sevenths of the price, and we buy the sack. Our friends will be totally grateful and start to feel better. And we'll have the sack."

"Brilliant!" says the Secretary. "We take the smelly bag off their hands and we get to split the gold. And I'll be earning interest on the loan I gave you."

"Yup," says the hedge-fund manager. "It's synergy. Of course, on the off chance it turns out to be a bag of shit, I won't be repaying the loan. But how likely is that?"

"Yeah, how likely is that?" laughs the Secretary. "The critics just don't realize this is better than just leaving the stinky bag out there. And they're just being pessimistic when they say it's a bag full of shit. Like they know. If we can't even tell what's in the sack, how can they?"

"Deal?" says the first Goldman Sachs alum?

"Deal," says the second Goldman Sachs alum.

This version is not as funny as the original. I'm beginning to suspect we're all the butt of this one.