Imagine this: you’re President Biden, you’ve been a career politician, your understanding of economics boils down to believing you can price fix oil prices, being on the political influencer dole, funded by China, through deals liaised by your ne’er-do-well son and clinging to the inane concept that over-taxation can solve all the nation’s problems because they can help fund the country’s most incompetent capital allocator: the government.
You wake up on any given Monday to find that the stock market has just casually shaved off 5% from everybody in the nation’s retirement accounts. The culprit today? A cryptocurrency lending firm called Celsius has caused additional market volatility on top of the volatility that the Fed is causing as a result of its fight against inflation.
“Damnit, Joe. It’s time to act,” you think to yourself, convinced there is some type of government solution to free markets taking 1 day to start to puke back 20 years of pornographic monetary policy.
You pull up a chair in the Oval Office and grab a pen and a fresh legal pad, both bearing the seal of the President of the United States of America. Time to get some work done. You scribble down the word ‘Celsius’ on the pad. You stare at it for about 6 minutes. “Celsius,” you say to yourself.
Then, you underline it.
Starting to get exhausted, you repeat to yourself again, “Celsius”, while trying to remember metric/standard conversions from 7th-grade science class. “Celsius. What in the world do I do with Celsius. Think, Joe. Think.”
It then occurs to you that you don’t actually know what Celsius is. You call in one of your younger interns who might know.
They correct you for not using their zee/zir gender pronouns correctly and change the subject to climate change. They’re no help. Friggin kids. You’re on your own with this one. Back to the drawing board.
In the background, CNBC is showing the stock market crash in real-time. “These people are financial experts,” you think to yourself. “They’ll know what’s going on.”
You turn around to the TV and find this:
You study this image. The guitar. The fire. What does it all mean?
Unable to ascertain an answer from CNBC, you flip the channel to another financial news network. “There’s no bullshit on other networks, they’ll know what to do,” you think to yourself, feeling satisfied.
You turn the channel and find this:
Before you can try to digest this savvy analyst’s take on inflation or the markets, your press secretary bursts through the door, urging you to give her a statement so she can fend off the media, who has been asking about the market crash all day.
“Tell them we’re keeping an eye on the market,” you tell her boldly, proudly content with your answer.
But last month we told reporters “That’s not something we keep an eye on every day, so I’m not gonna comment on that from here,” she reminds you.
You motion to her that it’s all OK now. We’ve got our heads wrapped around the problem: rate hikes are the only way to stop inflation but they’ll also crash the market. And after all, you’re writing things down on your legal pad – figuring shit out; Presidential shit – and you nod approvingly to her before pulling down your aviator shades.
She leaves the room to inform “the wolves” of your major decision to make a statement. It hits the wires:
WHITE HOUSE WATCHING STOCK MARKET CLOSELY: JEAN-PIERRE
Ha. Success. That’ll hold those sons of bitches off for a while.
Turning back to your legal pad, you think to yourself that we may need a congressional hearing to figure out what in the hell is really going on here. “This is what happens when Putin has influence and when billionaires don’t pay their fair share,” you think to yourself.
You meekly manage to generate a subatomic particle worth of an idea: I wonder if Powell can print enough money to just buy stocks, you think to yourself. Would that help inflation?
You glance at the clock. 5 hours have gone by. It’s closing time at the Oval Office and tomorrow is another day.
Turning the lights off as you walk out of the room, you stop and glance back at an empty Oval Office and the desk where you’ve produced today’s Presidential achievements.
You shake your head in disbelief that the nation could have such a low approval rating for you.
You exhale. “Celsius,” you mutter to yourself as you walk out.
