European Governments Finally Beginning To Grasp Basics Of Stock-Market Chicanery

Leading stockbrokers are already planning another scheme

The governments of France, Italy, Spain and Belgium have, after only a couple of hundred years, started to notice that the thieves and gamblers of the world’s stock markets may not actually have their nations’ best interests at heart, and have finally banned one of the most blatant cons.

“Imagine you and a friend go into a supermarket, and you pick up a bunch of bananas priced at one euro,” said French president Nicolas Sarkozy. “You bet your friend an euro that you can offload the bananas at a ridiculously low price, and he accepts. You then stop a random shopper, and offer her the bananas at five cents. She asks if you’re allowed to do that - since you don’t actually own a single banana - and you say it doesn’t really matter as you’ll buy them straight back from her at 50 cents, then put them back on the shelf. After she agrees to the transaction, you collect your euro from your friend, and you are now 55 cents richer for very little effort.”

“And that’s short-selling,” he summarised. “We are starting to come to the conclusion that the Anglo-Saxons might have had a point after all, when they suggested three years ago that this particular confidence trick may not be altogether a good thing.”