Passive Smirking

Reposting this from the back of the FT somewhere:

'JULY 1ST - ENGLAND GOES LIQUIDITY FREE'

So reads the campaign slogan of shadowy activist (shareholder) group Benson & Hedgefunds. Is it possible to induce a financial crisis by demoralising corporate smokers? These agent provocateurs have taken a pledge to try.

Members of the group this week called for the formation of un-smokefree teams to target those little covens of corporate smokers often found near the doorways of major financial institutions. Offering free fags and counselling to their targets, B&H's "Smoke'n'Mirrors" squads will take this opportunity to inform city employees of the precarious condition of their jobs.

In the light of the ongoing constriction of global liquidity, US bond market slide, subprime mortgage crash and gloomy pronouncements from former Bulls following  Bear Stearns' problems last week, they have plenty of material.

NO SMOKE WITHOUT F.I.R.E. (ECONOMY)

Could a free newspaper (or just a meticulously inscribed Marlboro?) detailing their superiors' willingness to inflict economic pain on those lower down the corporate ladder, be distributed to fumeous suits when they take their fagbreaks? Would it lead to internal volatility? B&H  believe that it's a risk worth taking:

'Layoffs of subprime sector financial workers have already taken place in the US,' say B&H, 'and now they're starting to occur in London. Private equity and hedge funds contain high levels of toxic assets. A stock market crash seriously harms you and others around you!'

TIME TO QUIT?

A campaign of active solidarity - and/or passive smirking - would mingle corporate smokers' irritation at being forced out of their offices to smoke with fear and anger about their future job prospects. 'We want to start a crisis of morale that wafts upwards from the street and causes a serious stink in the suites', added the B&H spokesman vindictively.

When asked why they are so keen to spark up The Big One, B&H are circumspect but rumour has it that they got badly burned when Long Term Capital Management collapsed and have never really recovered their animal spirits.

HAS ANYONE GOT ANY MORE PAPERS?

As Asian holders of US treasury bonds show an increasing willingness to invest their wealth elsewhere, B&H believe that the days of 'dollar imperialism' - the mechanism whereby the world's more industrially dynamic nations fritter away their earnings on little pieces of American paper - are numbered. The incentive to buy US treasury bills, for so long sustained by the desire to look sexy and attractive to America's millions of receptive consumers, is waning seriously now that the long term effects of this dangerous habit are common knowledge.

Compelling though their arguments may be, however, like ex-smokers, there's no one more self-righteous than a reformed investor. B&H, who advocate a programme of far reaching monetary reform and a 'nicorette patches' style process of managed withdrawal from excessively risky financial instruments, conclude with the grim conviction of the ex-hedgefund manager:

'If America doesn't reduce it's addiction to ultimately destructive cheap liquidity, top financial surgeons concur with us that the US and other similarly dependent nations such as the UK will experience declining profitability, impotence, and reproductive disorders.'

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!