Can anyone else see what is wrong with this?

Guill

I got this e-mail today and now i have a pain in my arse explaining why it does not work. And some people cant get it. So just for fun how many people here cans see whats wrong with it?

It is a slow day in a damp little Irish town. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the town, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night. The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel. The guy at the Farmers' Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the pub. The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him "services" on credit. The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note. The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town. No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism. And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the bailout package works.


Spoiler:

The hotel owner is now down 100 euro, he has lost the money the hooker owed him.

Duggy747

Guill wrote: »

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the bailout package works.

In Gumdrop-Smiles land it might work but not here in reality. Eurgh, sounds like something I'll be seeing on Facebook in the next few days.

danniemcq

yeah like a hooker would do you on credit

Kasabian

No wonder the hotels are closing at an alarming rate.

phasers

You can't pay for a hotel in cash, and nobody sells stuff on credit anymore.


Everything is wrong with that email.

Flimbos

Everyone in the town (except the hotel owner) have their balance sheet breaking even (they all owe €100, but they are all owed €100), so it looks like a fairly prosperous town by today's Irish standards.

And if that hooker is so hard up, she should cut down on her drinking!

If only it was this simple!

The hotel owner is in the same position he was in before (€100 down) - the hooker paid her bill, and he lost it, but he paid off his own debt.

Blarney92

But didn't the hotel owner pay off the hundred euro debt he owed the butcher...

Archeron

I wouldn't put a hundred quid down just to inspect a hotel room.

I wonder what he found that made it unsatisfactory? Maybe the hooker and butcher doing the nasty on the bed in the room he went into. In fairness they must have all been fairly close by for that many transactions to take place while somebody is noticing the jizz stains on the hotel rooms curtains.

danniemcq

Blarney92 wrote: »

But didn't the hotel owner pay off the hundred euro debt he owed the butcher...

yeah but the hundred quid that was owed to him is now gone to the tourist, so he still down 100

darsar

The German is the Germans. The hotelier is Bif and Lenihan. The butcher is the Banks. The pig farmers are the NAMA 10. The suppliers of feed and fuel are Semi State heads.

So in my conclusion I'm either a publican or a prostitute.

Or both.

Sykk

tl;dr

dolphin city

he would have been better off if he told the tourist to feck off with his money and then paid off his debt with his own 100 Euro note. It would come back to him again in the end anyway as the last person owed him money for the hotel.

Becaue the tourist is involved he walks away with his money and the hotel person has no 100 euro to put back in the till.

TheZohanS

March called, they want their post back.

darsar

dolphin city wrote: »

he would have been better off if he told the tourist to feck off with his money and then paid off his debt with his own 100 Euro note. It would come back to him again in the end anyway as the last person owed him money for the hotel.

Becaue the tourist is involved he walks away with his money and the hotel person has no 100 euro to put back in the till.

The pro need the money from the pub to pay her room. The publicans money came down the line from zee jermans!

knird evol

Just one slight problem I noticed with the story. And I could be nit picking here. But bare with me. This story bares absolutely no correlation, not within a million fucking miles of a connection to anything remotely to do with the mechanics of the bank guarantee, the ecb 'bail out' or any aspect of our financial crisis.

puttputt

It works because:

The Hotel Keeper owed 100 to the butcher and was owed 100 by the hooker so one balances the other and he is in a nil situation.

The fact that the 100 he got from the hooker was given back to the tourist doesn't matter as he no longer owes the butcher.

anothernight

phasers wrote: »

You can't pay for a hotel in cash, and nobody sells stuff on credit anymore.


Everything is wrong with that email.

Yes you can. Most of them will ask you for a deposit though.

smk89

You have wasted 5 minutes of my life!!

phasers

anothernight wrote: »

Yes you can. Most of them will ask you for a deposit though.

I thought the majority made you give a credit card now in case you stole something or fcuked up the room?

puttputt

The reason it doesn't really work is that there is no real debt in the situation.

knird evol

phasers wrote: »

I thought the majority made you give a credit card now in case you stole something or fcuked up the room?

Just you phasers. Your name is on a national database.
How long did you think you'd get away with throwing those tv's out the windows

Capt'n Midnight

It only worked out because the debts were internal.

Our debts are external.



But yes it does show how injecting money in to an economy can get things moving , but you have to remember that here in Ireland richer people are far more likely to save the money, invest in abroad than re-inject it back in the local economy in a short timescale. Giving money to those at the bottom of the rung means it's more likely to go around. In the case of Ireland we are talking a tiny percentage of the bailout, but it probably won't happen.



How many people thing the banks will lend a resonable amount of the bail out to small firms that are up against the wall ??

knird evol

puttputt wrote: »

It works because:

The Hotel Keeper owed 100 to the butcher and was owed 100 by the hooker so one balances the other and he is in a nil situation.

The fact that the 100 he got from the hooker was given back to the tourist doesn't matter as he no longer owes the butcher.

God, if only the world really worked this way. Where people had bank accounts and settled bills at the end of the month and money circulated around the economy.

knird evol

Because of the bank guarantee, irish citizens will have to discharge the debts of some private business for generations to come, money that would otherwise be spent on services that benefit them and will now be denied them.

There's nothing circular about that.

dolphin city

puttputt wrote: »

It works because:

The Hotel Keeper owed 100 to the butcher and was owed 100 by the hooker so one balances the other and he is in a nil situation.

The fact that the 100 he got from the hooker was given back to the tourist doesn't matter as he no longer owes the butcher.

as I said - he would have been better off if he paid out of his own pocket to the butcher and getting the money back from the hooker to put back in his pocket. bringing some "tourist" in to slap money and conditions down only complicate the matter - feck the tourist.

The tourist is a non sensical step - they can work it out themselves without the tourist involved.

Forest Master

Guill wrote: »

I got this e-mail today and now i have a pain in my arse explaining why it does not work. And some people cant get it. So just for fun how many people here cans see whats wrong with it?
Spoiler:

The hotel owner is now down 100 euro, he has lost the money the hooker owed him.

You're right that it doesn't work, but your reason/spoiler isn't why. It doesn't work because nobody was in debt to begin with - everyone owed someone €100, but everyone was also owed €100 = €0 on balance sheet = not in debt.

So they all started off owing €0 and ended up owing €0. Sin é.

anothernight

phasers wrote: »

I thought the majority made you give a credit card now in case you stole something or fcuked up the room?

No. If you offer to pay in cash they will take it (I'm sure somewhere they won't, but I've never had anyone refuse). The deposit they ask for when you pay cash is in case you break something in the room. If you're a regular guest in the hotel, if you look somewhat decent, or if you know someone in the hotel it's actually quite easy to waive the need to pay a deposit, not that they should let you do that!

Plek Trum

What is wrong in the OP?

1) Grammar
2) Lack of structure and paragraphs
3) Poor delivery and presentation.

The end.

Fukuyama

phasers wrote: »

You can't pay for a hotel in cash, and nobody sells stuff on credit anymore.


Everything is wrong with that email.

It's illegal for any business in Ireland not to accept cash once it's legal tender (Ie. Euro notes that are real).

The hotel industry are pushing for credit cards or laser cards for security issues and because it's easier to track you down and charge you if you light your bed on fire.

But if a hotel ever refuses to accept cash, they're breaking the law.

- Dean.

phasers

knird evol wrote: »

Just you phasers. Your name is on a national database.
How long did you think you'd get away with throwing those tv's out the windows

That's small time, I smuggle the TVs out and throw the bed out the window.

Joke's on them though, I use 3v vouchers with the exact cost of the room on it

Duggy747

phasers wrote: »

Joke's on them though, I use 3v vouchers with the exact cost of the room on it

3V vouchers and false identities are made for each other!!

It's how I pay for the shipment of my slaves

FoxT

OP's assessment is incorrect.

This is a cashflow problem.

Except for the tourist, Every player in the scenario is owed 100, and ever player owes 100, so their net position is zero.

When the hotelier takes the 100 off the counter, his net position is -100 (because he has borrowed the money from the tourist), but at the end of the day everybody is all square.

You could have achieved the same thing by having each person write an IOU, and then trade the IOUs, or by getting everybody into a room & agreeing contingent debt forgiveness (I'll forgive your debt to you if the butcher forgives my debt to him...)

This is absolutely NOT the situation in Ireland. Ireland has a massive debt caused by 2 factors:
1- running the country costs more than tax revenues can provide
and
2 - the govt is borrowing money to buy (worthless) bank equity so the banks can continue to trade.

Funny story though, I LOLed when I saw it first.

fontanalis

Does the hotel owner have an apartment in Bulgaria?
Anyway in your story shouldn't the hotel owner went to Germany first, or at least tell everyone the hotel is booked to capacity?

chin_grin

So what you're saying is the files are IN the computer?

longhalloween

Ok.. so what you're saying is we need a hotel that chanrges E85 billion a night...

tony1kenobi

It doesn't work because when the German asked to inspect the room the hotelier would have told him to f*ck off....everything after that never happened.

msg11

Ehh, what wrong with it. The tourist will suddenly have a 500€ note in front of him. When he left a 100€ note in the first place.

Seraphicblue

msg11 wrote: »

Ehh, what wrong with it. The tourist will suddenly have a 500€ note in front of him. When he left a 100€ note in the first place.

I'm not sure that you understand how money actually works :P

Ronin247

msg11 wrote: »

Ehh, what wrong with it. The tourist will suddenly have a 500€ note in front of him. When he left a 100€ note in the first place.

Seraphicblue wrote: »

I'm not sure that you understand how money actually works :P

Not sure you understand how the bailout will work!!

The ECB is lending us money to pay it back its losses from gambling on Anglo and we are paying interest on the loan and the losses.


Our government are such cowards I am ashamed of them.

Capt'n Midnight

Seraphicblue wrote: »

I'm not sure that you understand how money actually works :P

unlike those who lent it to us at 5.8%

dotsman

Guill wrote: »

The hotel owner is now down 100 euro, he has lost the money the hooker owed him.

You clearly cannot grasp basic logic. The hotel owner is even money. The €100 the hooker paid him was used to clear his debts of €100.

The whole point is everyone is even money. All money owed to them has been repaid, and all money they owed has been repaid.

Fulton Crown

Archeron wrote: »

I wouldn't put a hundred quid down just to inspect a hotel room.

I wonder what he found that made it unsatisfactory? Maybe the hooker and butcher doing the nasty on the bed in the room he went into. In fairness they must have all been fairly close by for that many transactions to take place while somebody is noticing the jizz stains on the hotel rooms curtains.

What kind of scumbag would swab the weapon on a hotel room curtain ?

Inside of the pillow cover for me every time....:D

Feelgood

Why not take the German's money and when he looks for it back tell him to fcuk off and give him a swift kick to the stones?

msg11

Feelgood wrote: »

Why not take the German's money and when he looks for it back tell him to fcuk off and give him a swift kick to the stones?

If we take there money and say fook off, they will start a war with us for ehhhh. Our turf.

See one of the gambles with this whole bail out is we might end up trapped in debt like africa. We start failing to pay, the money we owe will start going up and up in interest I think I am no expert..

Capt'n Midnight

msg11 wrote: »

If we take there money and say fook off, they will start a war with us for ehhhh. Our turf.

See one of the gambles with this whole bail out is we might end up trapped in debt like africa. We start failing to pay, the money we owe will start going up and up in interest I think I am no expert..

Have a read of Dead Aid sometime, we have been following the African model for a long tie

like the African countries we
- have relied on the knowledge that money would come from Europe in the future such there was no provision for alternative revenue sources once the cash crop failed (in our case houses)
- have massively expanded the public sector for no practical reason other than providing jobs (has it got more efficient, do we have lots more new essential services, no and no)
- reduced the tax on individuals so that there is little or no reason for them to vote against the Government
- didn't invest borrowed money wisely

and the big one is if we follow the African countries and continue to rely on European finance instead of paying off the debt.

Guill

dotsman wrote: »

You clearly cannot grasp basic logic. The hotel owner is even money. The €100 the hooker paid him was used to clear his debts of €100.

The whole point is everyone is even money. All money owed to them has been repaid, and all money they owed has been repaid.

Wrong, wrong wrong, you clearly cannot grasp basic logic.
Tourist is even. Hotel owner has cleared everyones debt at a loss of 100 euro to himself.

dotsman

Guill wrote: »

Wrong, wrong wrong, you clearly cannot grasp basic logic.
Tourist is even. Hotel owner has cleared everyones debt at a loss of 100 euro to himself.

I believe facepalm pictures were invented for times like this.

Ok, are you sitting comfortably? Take a deep breath, close your eyes and switch on your brain. All done? Good. Now please explain how you could possibly think that the owner is down €100?

clived2

If somone wrote this junk considering it to be some sort of a metaphor
for our current economic situtation, they need a smack in the face,

For every fool that gave a loan, credit would be charged, The money mutipler effect is what it is called.

Lay man terms

Their are 10 apples in the whole economy
Consider this I have the 10 apples, I loan 10 to you but I want 11 back, you loan 10 apples but want 11.1 apples back (yeah whatever etc) go down the line a few times, 16 apples are owed, and their is only 10 in the economy, which this is why the system is flawed. Apples created out of thin air that dont exist.

Forest Master

Guill wrote: »

Wrong, wrong wrong, you clearly cannot grasp basic logic.
Tourist is even. Hotel owner has cleared everyones debt at a loss of 100 euro to himself.

:rolleyes: Yeah, basic logic. You've managed to look quite the fool. How is he at a loss of €100 if he gave the butcher €100, but then the hooker gave him €100? Do you know what €100 minus €100 is?

My post here sums it up - there's nothing more to it.