GREED, The Real Pandemic, Rears Its Ugly Head At Last

I shared my professor, Nury Vittachi's feature. It came from Hong Kong Standard.

The specific feature of my professor is "Dissident's Diary". Hope you guy enjoy it.

The Center for Disease Control last night issued an urgent medical alert about a dangerous virus that could have a catastrophic effect on the world economy. "We've seen massive outbreaks in numerous countries," said a spokesman. "While we're hoping for the best, this could be the pandemic we've been dreading. We urge all member governments to take preventative action immediately."

Doctors are calling the virus Generally Reductive Economically Enervating Dementia, or GREED. If left untreated, it almost inevitably leads to full-blown economic deficiency syndrome.

Overview: Extraordinarily, the GREED virus avoids children and poor people, and has hit the West far more heavily than Asia. Almost all the victims are upper middle class or wealthy, and usually male. Scientists are investigating whether some part of the yuppie lifestyle - designer suits, sports cars or first-class air tickets - is triggering the disease. Ironically, in the majority of cases it eventually causes a dramatic shrinkage of the bank account and can lead to total cashectomies, which is the reduction of the sufferer's net worth to zero.

Early symptoms: In the incubation stage, the sufferer starts to make clearly absurd decisions, such as believing he can make money by granting massive home loans to people who cannot possible pay them off. This was first observed in New York's Wall Street, but spread to banks all over the world, including Asian banks such as HSBC.

Advanced symptoms: As the disease takes hold, the sufferer will choose to make "safe bets" by buying property in cities which are already the most expensive in the world.

In the later stages of the disease, he will put the remainder of his cash in hedge funds with names such as High Risk Probable Asian Disaster Fund. Throughout this period, any attempt to warn him of the inherent dangers in such moves will typically result in an increase in bizarre investments.

Transmission: "Now here's the really bad news," said Dieter Boringly, spokesman for the World Health Organization. "We can confirm that we have numerous documented cases of human-to-human transmission."

Certain sufferers have been designated "super-spreaders," having been observed to spread the disease to the middle classes. Intriguingly, many of these carried business cards bearing the phrase "Financial Planner."

Contagion: Doctors warn that the condition can be spread in numerous ways. "It seems to be carried by financial newspapers, where it settles on pages with titles such as 'Your Money' or 'Stock Tips,'" said Dr David Daft, a virologist.

High-risk behavior has exacerbated the spread of the condition among people of various classes who make unprotected investments. "Always use protection," he said. "That's our advice to everyone, including the pope."

Treatment: Doctors says sufferers need to be isolated - with electric cattle-prods if necessary - from newsstands selling financial papers, screens showing stock market data, and the storefronts of real estate agents.

"But prevention is the best cure," added Mr Boringly of the WHO. "Make sure you eat several portions of fruit and vegetables a day, and above all, never, never, never come into contact with a stockbroker, investment banker or financial planner without washing your hands with powerful anti-bacterial cream."

Meanwhile, people in "low-class" jobs such as toilet-cleaning and journalism are watching with astonishment as wealthy financial people lose everything. "My heart bleeds for them," said columnist Nury Vittachi, expressing his deep sympathy by laughing hysterically.

Nury Vittachi, 11 April 2008
Hong Kong Standard
www.vittachi.com