From the Desk Of A Trader #8
"A lively trade of duct tape fruits emerged and everyone was happy."
Today, we are happy to share the thoughts from the desk of a soft commodities trader. The following views are that of Martijn Bron and do not represent the views of his employer.
I like to use analogies to explain things.
Let me tell you the story of the Taped Banana Concept (TBC).
Art prices were rising, and art had become inaccessible to regular people.
Museums were seen as elitist.
A mysterious artist came up with an idea to revolutionize the art industry by giving everyone the ability to be their own museum.
He came up with the idea of a banana, duct taped to the wall, so that every person in the world could have the same genuine piece of art at home.
He posted his idea online. No one paid attention to it, as no one had ever heard about this artist, and the idea sounded pretty stupid.
It got picked up though by a local museum and they tried to contact the artist in vain. The museum thought, you know what, it is clear what he wrote and we make this piece of art ourselves, and put it on display.
When visitors said "this is just a banana duct taped to the wall", the museum said they did not understand it and explained that TBC was going to revolutionize the art world.
A bigger museum bought TBC for usd 1k. Wow, the return that the first museum had made on TBC was insane, as they made it for pretty much nothing.
This transaction got a lot of media attention and art experts, celebrities and financial advisors started to promote TBC.
Online TBC communities started to flourish.
Everyone wanted to have their own museum at home and the demand for bananas and duct tape went through the roof.
Millions of people duct taped a banana in their living room. They were the proud owner of their own museum and posted about it online.
The Guggenheim Museum in New York wanted to display the original TBC and decided to buy it for the insane amount of usd 10k.
When this transaction hit the media every single owner of a TBC at home was ecstatic as they owned the exact same thing!
They all had made an insane return.
Now many thought, what if I am going to duct tape an apple, a strawberry or a mandarin to the wall, show it to my neighbors and sell it to them?
And this is what happened. A lively trade of duct tape fruits emerged and everyone was happy.
Those who were skeptical were told they did not understand it and should be happy staying poor.
Till that day that a visitor of the Guggenheim museum walked up to the unprotected TBC at display, pulled it off the wall and ate it, to the horror of the other visitors.
It is just a banana and it is not worth usd 10k!
The Guggenheim is a fraud!
Everyone who owned a TBC tried to sell it, but the market obviously died.
On the internet and in the main stream media everyone wondered how this had happened, and why no one had said that TBC was just a banana, and that the supply of banana and other fruits was infinite.
We already have beautiful museums all over the world that really provide a great experience, much better than a museum at home could ever do.
#markets #economy #art #money #media
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