Think of Banking as Russian Roulette

He was a roof tiler tanned chocolate brown

By working outdoors in the tropical sun

Baseball cap, cheap servo sunnies, tats

Singlet, thongs, shorts too long

Thought of himself as a small business man

Who knew a thing or two about economics

"Think of Banking as Russian Roulette."

It was a statement rather than a question

As if he were giving examples of how well

Violent analogies work when trying to explain

Market vagaries and economic inequality

"You put the bullet in. That's your savings."

Except that a gun is a mechanism

Not an institution listed on the stock exchange

Which needs to justify its profit margins

To its stock holders on a regular basis

But yeah I can see how the analogy works

"Then the barrel gets spun. That's investment."

I can see how on one level investment as a gamble

And the chances of getting shot in the head are

Matched in levels of danger as one can often

Lead to the other but the analogy is breaking down

"Others bet on what happens when the trigger's pulled,

That's called hedging." Yeah, hedging your bets

So the barrel has been spun, the gun is cocked,

Bets are placed on whether or not this poor sucker

Gets their brains splattered all over the hand-crafted

Mum-and-Dad investor table 
(Telstra share owners beware!)

"Then the trigger is pulled. That's the payoff."

So, if you didn't get a bullet in the head

Then you are substantially richer, none-the-wiser

Free to take long walks on beaches with your dog

Until you choose to load another bullet in the gun

That might just be the shot that kills everyone

© shaun patrick green 2012