How It Works...........

[Shaglene]

Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich tourist from down south is driving through town. He stops at the motel and lays $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.

As soon as the man walks upstairs, the owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.

The guy at the Farmer's Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit.

The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the $100

The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, picks up the $100 bill, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything.

However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how most business is conducted today..

[marval]

Good one

[AZardoz]

I will pass that on. It's a rough parallel to real life & the banking system:
http://www.moneyasdebt.net/

'Business & Finance' would have been more fitting, but then nobody would read it.

[mallyh]

the hotel owner is still out of pocket

[Ken4155]

Sort of reminds me of an incident, back in the mists of time - well, mid 70s - many people in the Markets area of Belfast were in rent arrears. In order to curry favour, the local branch of the IRA visited these properties and gave the tenants the money to settle their debts. Then along comes the rent collector who, no doubt, is a tad astonished to be paid the arrears in full at each and every door he knocked on. Shortly after, he was ambushed, by the IRA naturally, and all the money stolen/reclaimed. Needless to say, as a result of this Robin Hood-ish act, their popularity rose somewhat.

[Old_Geezer]

The hotel owner started with nothing (moneywise) and has nothing at the end. Like the whole chain. He's not out of pocket.

Old one but a good one.