The Market

Contrary to complaints you may have heard in other places, I would like to reassure Beaker Folk that the Market is not some bear-pit of bankrobbers, fly-tippers and bear-baiters. Obviously greed is not a good thing, and it is wrong that people's lives are made worse by the short-term actions of speculators who are happy to take the upside while expecting the Government to bail them out when things go wrong.

On the other hand, we made an absolute fortune over the last months thanks to the demise of Mrs Whimsey's Doily Shops Ltd. You may remember that we took Mrs Whimsey's over at a knock down price, on the grounds that we could keep this traditional and much-loved British industry in action, and incorporated it into our own doily production supply chain - thus achieving what I believe is referred to as "vertical integration". We then carried out a sale-and-leaseback of the shops to a separate limited property company, then watched and grinned as the value of the land crashed and the property company went bust. The property company had borrowed the money from Abbey, but fortunately since it was held at arms-length by an offshore holding company, the bank can whistle.

But being good stewards, we were not simply going to bury this money as in the parable of the talents. Oh no. We put it to good use taking short positions on HBOS. We're absolutely rolling in it now, and we can use a small portion of the money to pick up the chain of now-disused doily shops for a song.