Sleeping with beautiful women and the subprime crisis

(This article is excerpted from an online blog http://www.51mtw.com) A few days ago, I read a story — One day, an unremarkable-looking man walked into an LV store in Causeway Bay with an extremely attractive woman. He selected a 65,000 yuan LV handbag for this woman.

When it came to payment, the man took out his checkbook and signed a check very casually. The shop assistant was somewhat troubled because this couple was shopping at the store for the first time.

The man saw through the assistant's thoughts and calmly said to the assistant: "I can tell that you're worried this might be a bad check, right? Today is Saturday, and the bank is closed. I suggest you keep both the check and the handbag. Once the check clears on Monday, please have your store deliver the handbag to the woman's house. Does that sound okay to you?"

The assistant felt reassured, gladly accepted this suggestion, and generously promised that the delivery fee for the handbag would be covered by the store, and he himself would personally ensure everything went smoothly.

On Monday, the assistant took the check to the bank for deposit, only to find out it was indeed a bad check! Enraged, the assistant called the customer, who told him: "There's really no big deal here! Neither you nor I suffered any loss. Last Saturday night, I had already slept with that beautiful woman! Oh, thank you for your cooperation."

This story reveals the essence of the subprime crisis. When people are filled with positive expectations about future returns, they often lack awareness of potential increased risks. The beautiful woman thought she would have her over 60,000 yuan LV bag at home by Monday, so naturally relaxed her guard, believing the investment in one-night stands (ONS) was worthwhile. Her expectation of return on investment was based on a situation with enormous uncertain risks. Packaging these future return expectations is precisely what these investment institutions excel at. Most Chinese stock investors are like this beautiful woman, so losing money is almost a given, I don't need to say much more. Without these people, whose money would the stock market make? Meanwhile, the media and analysts often play a role akin to that of the LV shop assistant in this scenario.