Alright, I’m going to break this down real simple so even a billionaire can understand.
It’s summer and your mom has given you $6.75 trillion to start a lemonade stand. Now you’re a savvy business boy and think that’s far too much to spend on a lemonade stand. What you’ve got to buy lemons, some sugar, how much could that possibly cost? No, you can definitely do it for like, $4 trillion and save yourself 30%.
But here’s the problem. Your mom lent you the money and she wants a return on her investment, you know, for her retirement. She needs back $1.46 trillion and that’s non-negotiable so you can’t use that.
Oh, and she also needs $0.8 trillion back to cover the interest on her loan. You know, in line with inflation. Your mom’s always been savvy like that.
Fine, well what about your overheads? Well, you get to the store and turns out lemons are $0.9 trillion dollars now, sugar is $0.8tr and the trident missiles in case terrorists attack your lemonade stand, that’s another $0.8tr. And you need all those things.
Well, what else? Maybe you don’t need a stool to sit on, maybe you can stand up. And maybe you don’t need a table. And maybe you don’t need jugs and cups to serve the lemonade in, you can just leave it in a puddle on the floor and customers can just suck it straight out of the pavement.
Ok, so let’s not spend money on all those things that you need and…
Congratulations, you did it! You’ve saved $2tr by literally cutting everything you could until you have nothing left!
But then you think for a moment, sitting there in your lemonade puddle… wait a minute, my mom wouldn’t trust me with 6.75 trillion dollars let alone a lemonade stand. I asked her to buy me the lemons and a stand and print flyers and she said she really appreciated my advice but didn’t do anything I suggested.
And wait another minute, maybe there never was a lemonade stand maybe this was all pretend.
And wait a final minute, I’m a 53-year-old man!
Oh, well, that was all just a bit of fun anyway. At least people are now talking about you and at least you’re still rich, richer even. And at least, God preserve us, at least, “The merch will be 🔥🔥🔥”
