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A discussion of a financial crisis
in three paragraphs.
Once upon a time there was a village. In the
village there was a well. The well provided the village with
all its water supplies and consequently was well-used by the
villagers. Occasionally in a drought it would dry up, causing
considerable hardship to the villagers in the process. They had
to get their water from a nearby river. Various attempts by village
mayors to resolve this problem failed, though after a long spell
of wet summers and considerable expenditure on the well one of
them claimed to have solved the problem forever.
The following year there was a drought and
the well dried up anyway, leaving the mayor looking a bit silly
and in urgent need of a face-saving solution. This turned out
to involve paying some unemployed locals to carry water up from
the river to pour down the well, thus making it seem nice and
full and keeping everyone broadly happy. However, the mayor then
went and died; he was replaced by a fresh-faced chap who disagreed
with refilling the well on the grounds that it rather negated
the point of having it if the water was only available because
various people were, at enormous expense, carrying it up from
the river.
The well then proceeded to dry up again. This
was largely because the spring had failed to restart after the
drought. Examinations are being made to see if the expenditure
on the well involved making it watertight. Meanwhile the villagers
are having to bring their water up from the river. Fingers are
being crossed that the well will refill of its own accord once
water stops being poured into it while the former water-carriers
are paid to stay at home. There are mutterings about the logic
of this. |
