The Forest of High Finance had strict standards. It was not a jungle, you see. Jungles were chaotic, uncivilised places where the strong simply devoured the weak without first consulting a legal team or executing a leveraged buy…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Excuse me, Mr Narration,\u2019 interrupted a Field Mouse wearing a tiny pinstripe waistcoat. \u2018We also have a board of directors and a regulated commodities exchange.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Right. As I was saying, before the rodents began billing for corporate compliance…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a quiet, still green clearing within the forest, the animals decided to abandon the barter system. Bartering was tedious, especially for Barney the Badger, who was tired of lugging forty sacks of pinecones to the lake to buy a single jar of river trout from the Observant Otters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To solve this, Barney created the Acorn Standard. Every animal was assigned a stash based on their perceived productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Naturally, the Foxes set up the first bank. Within a month, Reginald the Rude Fox had convinced the rest of the forest that holding physical acorns was remarkably primitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Why carry bulky oak produce when you can trade in Oak Notes?\u2019 Reginald purred, flicking his tail. \u2018It is lighter, cleaner and completely backed by the absolute promise that the acorns exist in our deep, underground vault.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The animals agreed. It seemed immensely clever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before long, Reginald the Rude realised that nobody ever actually asked to see the acorns in the vault. So, he began issuing Oak Notes for acorns that had not yet fallen from the trees. Then, he issued notes for trees that had not yet grown. Finally, he created Future-Leaf Derivatives, allowing the Owls to bet on whether a storm might blow down a rival squirrel\u2019s nest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Barney worked sixteen hours a day digging burrows to earn a single paper note, Reginald and his inner circle spent their afternoons sipping fermented berry juice on high branches. They bought golden monocles, hired Heavy-coated Hedgehogs as private security and declared their hollowed-out Oak Tower a self-governing tax haven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018We do not dig, nor do we hunt,\u2019 Reginald the Rude announced to his board of Wiry Weasels, raising a goblet of aged dew. \u2018We simply manage the perception of abundance.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One August afternoon, a severe drought struck the forest. The streams dried up, the soil hardened and the animals queued outside Reginald\u2019s vault to redeem their paper notes for actual food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reginald the Rude stepped onto his balcony, adjusted his silk tie and opened the vault doors. Inside sat a single, dried-up twig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Where are the acorns?\u2019 shouted Barney the Badger, clutching a fistful of worthless paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018My dear mustelid,\u2019 Reginald laughed, hopping into a luxury hot-air balloon woven from spider silk. \u2018The acorns were leverage! We re-invested them into cloud-seeding options which unfortunately expired at noon.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the balloon drifted effortlessly above the starving, bewildered crowd, Reginald the Rude popped a cork and looked down at the frantic chaos below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The moral<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Must be funny in the rich men\u2019s world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a quiet, still green clearing within the forest, the animals decided to abandon the barter system. Bartering was tedious, especially for Barney the Badger, who was tired of lugging forty sacks of pinecones to the lake just to buy a single jar of river trout from the Observant Otters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,188,123,118],"tags":[387,388,189,312],"class_list":["post-4288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-experimental-prose","category-fable","category-picks","category-tunes-into-tales","tag-acorns","tag-badger","tag-fable","tag-fox"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4288"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4291,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4288\/revisions\/4291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}