The Alcoholic.
The science that explained all economic crises.
Mary is the owner of the bar. One day, she realizes that almost all of her clients are unemployed alcoholics, so she can no longer hold a bar – just ruin.
To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now and pay later. It records the amount of drink in special books (thus providing customers with credit).
About Mary's strategy "pay now - pay later" begins to go fame, and as a result, the flow of customers in Mary's bar increases. Soon her bar shows the largest sales volumes in her city – the prospects look ragged. By giving her customers the freedom to demand immediate payment, Maria does not encounter any resistance when, at regular intervals, she significantly increases the prices of the most popular beverages – wine and beer. Therefore, the volume of sales of the bar of Maria is also increasing.
The young president of the local bank understands that these customer debts represent a valuable future asset, and increases Maria’s lending. He sees no reason to worry, because as a collateral he has debts of alcoholics.
At the headquarters of the bank, traders-experts come up with a way to earn huge commissions by transforming these clients’ debts into Accounting and Alcohol Bonds. Then these assets begin to be traded on international securities markets. New investors do not fully understand that these securities, which were sold to them as the highest-rated AAA securities, are actually debts of unemployed alcoholics. Securities prices continue to rise, and assets soon become the fastest purchased positions among the country’s leading brokers.
Once, even though bond prices continue to rise, the local bank’s risk manager decides that it’s time to demand payments for the debts accumulated from the alcoholics at Maria’s bar. He informs her about it. Maria begins to demand money from her alcoholics, but, being unemployed, the alcoholics cannot repay the loans. Since Maria is unable to meet its credit obligations, she is forced to declare default. Now she is bankrupt. The bar closes and 11 employees lose their jobs.
During one night, the bucharel and alcohol bonds lose 90% of their value. The amount of the collapsed value of these assets destroys bank liquidity and prevents the issuance of new loans, thereby freezing credit and all economic activity.
Suppliers for Maria’s bar, who provided her with extended payment terms, invested the pension funds of their firms in various securities. They find that at this point they have faced the need to write down hopeless debts and that they have lost more than 90% of the estimated value of bonds. Her wine suppliers also declare bankruptcy, closing a family business that has fed three generations. Her beer supplier is redeemed by a competitor who immediately closes the local factory and dismisses 150 workers.
Fortunately, the bank, the brokerage firms and their management were saved by a multi-billion-dollar package from their friends in the government. The funds for this rescue package were found by taxing the working middle class, who never looked at Mary’s bar.