2021 christmas bonus edition
Stardust …
“Meanwhile in a galaxy far, far closer than you think…”
“Lets go to the cinema. They are showing Doctor Who, the movie.”
……..
The otherwise dark screen shows stars in a random region of space. White writing originates at the bottom of the screen, slowly moving to the top while diminishing in size, creating the illusion of it moving backwards. A male voice simultaneously reads out the text:
“Disgrace, the final frontier…
These are the exploits of the Asinine Stock Exchange.
It’s three-year mission:
To explore strange new legal frontiers,
To seek out new strife and altercations,
To boldly go where no sane man has gone before…”
The screen then presents a blue phone box (blue, like Doctor Who), floating in empty space, as if in an observational position, in front of and seemingly above the billions of stars that seem to swirl into and out ofthe quasi-stationary density waves that structure the spiral arms of the the Milky Way. But, of course, in reality there is no up or down, above or below, front or behind, in Space’sabsolute discretion (TM).
Some two thirds out from the galaxies’ centre, a tiny bright object can be seen, varying in its light’s colour and intensity from one side to the other. A pleasant female voice with a lovely British accent is heard, presumably from within the phone box, asking the one-hundred-and-fourteenth Doctor:
“And what is that pretty light, pray tell?”
“That, my dear friend, is what is called a black hole.”
“How does it form?”
“Normally, A great mass, the equivalent of multiples of your sun, causes gravity to overwhelm even the degeneracy pressure of neutrons, and collapses matter into a singularity, around which the escape speed is greater than the speed of light. It removes itself from reality, so to speak.”
“This particular black hole, though, was created by the digging of the ASX, of which you heard on our last visit to your planet. They just kept digging until such a vast amount of clean fill and horse manure was accumulated that this black hole was formed in the end. Removed from reality, literally.”
“But why can we still see it?”
“What you see is just an accreting disc of gasified superheated matter, radiating. In other words: Hot air.”
“What caused them to do this?”
“ISX was meant to be destroyed, by removing the ability of the start-up company to raise capital. That having failed due to the company being profitable, ASX might now try to drag out the legal processes to infinity (and insanity), by injecting hot air as long as possible, to stifle growth of ISX, while time is ticking away to expiry of the patents, the intellectual property the company holds. But really, they are just feeding their own Black Hole.”
“But how did all this start?”
“It all started with a bespoke report and a vacuous ‘news’-paper article that spooked the market operator into action.”
“It was like a phase transition. Before, you had the solid system of orderly trading, but afterwards you had the turbulent market condition, fuelled by the hot air of market manipulation - and by the massive losses to the holders, that were caused by it. The market operator then used this as an excuse to suspend the company.”
“The market operator’s staff felt ‘grated’. The narrative regarding ISX quickly became:We own the market - Let’s go brand ’em.The market operator suspended ISX, in its absolute discretion(TM), while trying to find some fault - any fault - but, alas for them, without success. This lack of incriminating results caused the market “operator” to act like a Dalek that’s blown its head gasket, screaming ‘hypothecate-incriminate, investigate-exterminate’, with its hemisphere head gyrating wildly and the weaponised shnozzle pointing at imaginary targets of the past, all the while emitting random accusations, in its absolute discretion(TM).“
“Initially, the pain was only afflicted onto the victim, namely ISX and her shareholders, while ASX, the market ‘operator’, seemingly all powerful, acted in its absolute discretion(TM). But then matters took a turn around, with the now profitable ISX suing ASX for reinstatement and damages. To ASX it was like having shot yourself in the foot with the latest laser gun instead of the firearms of old. You don’t get the instant thud and pain, but you do feel the heat later.”
“So now you have drawn-out legal arguments, endlessly ‘spaghettified’, like stars caught in a black holes’ gravitational embrace. ASX arguing like artificial intelligence without the intelligence. Feeding the accretion disk with hot air.”
“Weaponization of institutions was a distinct problem of the societies on that planet. A party with a vested interest could order a ‘report’ on a company. A widely read paper would take this up and produce accusations that were untrue at first glance. Like “the directors helped themselves to 300 million dollars worth of shares” when the ballpark figure, at the time they were issued, was 40 million, the difference actually being organic growth produced under those same directors’ management. But without compunction, the market operator suspended ISX, starving her of new capital. Then, ASIC, the big gun, was aimed and fired, but the shell looked like a bit of a fizzer. Then, someone must have called in the tax office on the MD, causing an assessment which would have been the end for the average tax payer, as in ‘guilty until proven innocent’, in a system where court costs are prohibitive. But this guy could bite back. He was therefore able to leave the system before the black hole was formed, to continue progressing ISXFEU, which contains the intellectual property that also escaped the formation of the black hole. I, for one, wish him well.”
Suddenly, a team of rein deers, pulling a man dressed in red garb on a sleigh, is seen to eject at high speed from the magnetic north pole of the black hole system. Tacky, but hey - this is a Christmas special…
“What, pray tell, is that?”
“That seems to be Santa and his team, escaping the north pole and the gravity of the events and their horizon.”
“But nothing can escape past the event horizon?”
“Well, he is legend…”
White writing originates at the bottom of the screen, slowly moving to the top while diminishing in size, creating the illusion of it moving backwards:
< In Space, no-one can hear your bells jingle >
Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year to all holders
