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— Dealsense —
A brief history lesson might be in order, because so many things have happened over the past several weeks and it was hard to keep everything straight. To start, it's difficult to believe now, but back when InBev was taking away our beer, the fundamentals were quite weak. They were routinely being beaten up by the basics, and they would meekly turn over their lunch money to a gang of the essentials. Foreign acquirers always wait for the fundamentals to atrophy before swooping in and buying up American consumerist icons. Same thing happened when Canadian dictator José Luis Zapatero grabbed all of our BlackBerrys and turned them into the world's biggest particle accelerator -- a device so powerful it could have created a black hole that it would swallow every share of stock issued by U.S. investment banks. Luckily, the short sellers beat him to it.
This time around, the strong fundamentals are keeping those foreigners at bay, a situation that would have been unthinkable if Henry Paulson hadn't taken over the country. Paulson, you'll recall, is the former small-town mayor from Alaska who spent nearly five years as a prisoner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks. Paulson gained control of our beloved nation during a series of emergency meetings at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Attending were the usual saviors of American capitalism: Government banking officials, the CEOs of the major Wall Street financial institutions, the Jonas Brothers, a platoon of attorneys from the world's most prestigious law firms and the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who was represented at the confab by a plastic ficus tree. After a lusty round of credit default swaps at a local watering hole, the group got down to business. They realized that the reason the fundamentals were weak was that they had become infected with rampant elitism. Clearly, a populist touch was called for, so the assembled snowbillies naturally turned to Paulson, who famously responded "thanks, but no thanks" when Congress tried to build seven houses for Carly Fiorina. So Paulson it was. His first task, of course, was to formulate a doctrine. A leader cannot strengthen the fundamentals without a doctrine. The Paulson Doctrine, as Paulson's doctrine came to be known, was powerfully simple in every respect: Any financial institution requesting a federal bailout must successfully apply facial cosmetics to domesticated swine. At first, critics complained. Then they wept uncontrollably. Finally, they took a nap. But they continued to question Paulson and his doctrine. "You can put lipstick on a pig," opponents pointed out, "but it's still the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act." Paulson, though, deftly turned aside these objections. "There's somethin' that needs fixin' over yonder on that thar' Wall Street," Paulson would drawl, swigging in his adorably folksy way from a bottle of Stella Artois. "And we're gonna watchacallit." This down-home logic was so convincing that Paulson immediately received a post-convention bounce, followed in rapid succession by a post-hypnotic suggestion and a postnasal drip. Beyond the undeniable effects on Paulson's popularity, subconscious and sinuses, his campaign produced real-world results. For example, "Saturday Night Live" canceled plans to mock his doctrine with a skit starring Tina Fey. Instead, the show presented a dramatization of Paulson's life titled "Paulson: From Frozen Tundra to Financial Titan," featuring Howie Mandel in the title role. The episode quickly became one of YouTube's most popular videos, particularly Mandel's rendition of "Never Gonna Give You Up" -- Paulson's signature tune from his days as lead singer of the popular '80s boy band The Keating Five. All these developments were positive, but the fundamentals remained pathetically feeble. Several sectors of the economy were growing visibly annoyed by the drone of simpering fundamentals. So Paulson dispatched his surrogates to the Sunday talk shows with instructions to spread his doctrine upon the otherwise barren ground of cable and broadcast TV. And sure enough, with each invocation of the Paulson Doctrine, the fundamentals strengthened. Soon, the fundamentals boasted a set of six-pack abs. With Paulson at the helm, this one-time nation of whiners and watery beer has grown into a swaggering colossus. At this point, even China is convinced that the U.S. is too big to fail. The problem now is that Paulson may have gone too far. The fundamentals have gotten so strong that they are threatening to invade Spain. |
Remember those frightening days when everyone was worried about Budweiser falling into foreign hands? A lot has changed since then. We're much better off now. After all, the fundamentals are strong. And we have Henry Paulson to thank for that.
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