EconAir

There was a rabbit named Harry. All the male rabbits in his forest were named Harry. He wanted to change his name but didn’t know what to change it to. Harry was very adventurous. He was also very tired of the same old boring green stuff all rabbits ate. So he started hiding under the trees surrounding a campground. After a group of humans left a campsite, Harry would rummage through their garbage looking for new things to eat. One hot, drowsy day he was outside an occupied campsite hoping the humans would leave. He fell asleep. Next thing he knew a girl had grabbed him and carried him to their campsite. He was very scared but the family seemed nice and liked having him around. Even better, they fed him. One night they put him on top of the TV they were watching. Surprised, they saw that the picture improved. That’s where we got the term “rabbit-ears.” (Have your parents explain) Harry had a favorite food. He realized the humans called it Nachos. He decided to change his ...

      It was a lovely summer day – nice and warm, not too hot. Ribbit hopped down to the pond and decided to tan her legs. She was lying lazily on a lily pad, half asleep. Whenever she felt a little movement in the air, she quickly stuck out her long tongue and caught a fly. Then she caught a grasshopper. Before Ribbit could eat the grasshopper, it cried out “Wait! If I could teach you how to hop better, would you let me go?” Ribbit thought about the frog race that was about to start in the big, open field. Ribbit didn’t enter the races because most of the other frogs were bigger or had stronger legs than her. “OK,” said Ribbit. The grasshopper said, “I’ve been watching all you frogs hop and you’re really not very good at it. Some of you are too big and fat and others hop too hard. That’s why you hop a little bit and then have to rest. I’ll show you how to be a better hopper. When you hop, lean your body forward, push your face up and out and stick out your tongue. That’l...

You go around to farmers with cows. You buy all the cows and pay the farmers a small fee to milk the cows and sell the milk. You pay for the cows with ass(et)-backed securities called MBSs (Milked Bovine Securities) that you tell investors are udderly safe. But some of the cows don't give enough milk (cow flow problems) or give no milk at all. You take some of the asset-backed securities, say they're backed by the subprime cows, and use them as collateral to sell another set of securities called CMOs (Cow Milk Obligations). Then you buy CDSs (Cow Dried-up Swaps) from AIG (Angus Insurance Company) to insure the CMOs when the cows stopped giving milk. If you work it right, you collect more on the CDSs than you pay out to retire the CMOs. The money you get from selling the dead cows go to pay the CLOs (cow leather obligations). You could also sell CDOs (cow dung obligations) that depend on how much cow dung is produced. This is a typical Wall Street product - turning s...