84 - Vince, the Corrupt Bureaucrat?💰
Hey there, !
Another story from the archives (of my brain, not the newsletter). This comes fresh off the back of the Statue of Limitations running out on my crime - hope y’all don’t hold it against me too much :D
1.
Melbourne Grammar School has this great program in Year 6 called Earn and Learn. Essentially, with the next generation of business leaders of the world sitting next to each other, the school would hold a simulation of capitalist society. Kids could set up whatever businesses they wanted to, and with an ‘income’ (provided by the school as fake money), they could go spend it at different places.
There was actually a lot of really interesting stuff people came up with:
- Driving licenses which you could buy, with a ‘driving test’ in the game Midtown Madness 2
- A pet shop, which sold pets that were incredibly weird and wonderful - things like mermaid cats, unicorns, birds of all different shapes and sizes, fish with horns…I myself bought a vampire dog. SO CUTE.
- People sold jewellery, little friendship bracelets and tchotchkes which they had made
- There were raffles and even a gambling zone (LOL)
And where do you think little ol’ Vince sat in this whole enterprise?
Right at the seat of power…the bank.
2.
To fully simulate a capitalist society, there were a few positions that could be interviewed for to gain a higher than average income (because you were being paid by the ‘government’).
I’m all about that risk aversion and a guaranteed income, so when I saw the position of ‘banker’ open up I knew that my mathematical ability could finally be used to it’s fullest extent - making money. My edge over the competition was superior mathematical ability due to my gene- I mean, hard work.
And years of Kumon.
Being the banker was extremely easy. All I had to do was change money for other money (i.e. I remember a request from the gambling company - could they get $500 in $5’s only so that could shake the money around in front of people. Yes of course), and hold a ledger of the money that had been deposited in the bank.
And then…I let the power go to my head.
3.
Being the only person in charge of the money meant I had a unique position in handling it. There was a ‘Demo Day’ where the Year 4’s were coming into the class to see the fruits of our labour - the different businesses and entrepreneurial start-ups we had founded in the last 8 weeks.
As the centre of power, I had friends in Year 4 that I wanted to give a leg up. When we were setting up the different piles of money that were to be given to them to spend ($500) I slipped another $300 into each of their piles.
SHOCK. HORROR. The Vince you know and love was a corrupt bureaucrat. I know, I know - how unethical.
What can I say? The power just got to my head. I get why we need regulators and auditors now.
Even worse, most of my friends were Asian. So it really wouldn’t have been a good look for the race…not only because there weren’t many Asians there at the time, but especially since it reflected poorly on my mathematical ability ;D
Unfortunately for me, my friends were much more honest than I was, and instantly handed back the $300 when they found the error.
No harm, no foul - just a silly error from silly old Vince :D
4.
Having failed in my endeavour to help my friends gain more income, I instead turned my attention inwards, hoping to enrich myself through my position by…
…doing magic tricks. I mean, I failed at sleight-of-hand, but I could do other things!
After the failed business model of ‘steal from the government’ I turned to magic to help hustle money from the parents (who came to another Demo Day). They had to pay real money to get fake money - and they had to come to the bank to change their money.
At that point, I was quite obsessed with magic, and I had a special deck of cards that had special markings on the back which you could tell what card it was. When parents came to exchange their money, I’d offer to do some magic for a measly $20 fake dollars (they usually got around $500 fake dollars for $25).
“Pick a card, any card. Great, excellent - now, hold that card out in front of you, yep that’s right, arm outstretched and…is your card the King of Hearts?”
“Ah crap, no…okay okay, double or nothing - let me try again. I’ll just shuffle these cards again…pick a card, any card. Excellent - now keep the card’s picture in your head…and…is it the Eight of Clubs?”
#HUSTLER
I made about $800 before one of the heathen, non-believing-in-magic teachers took the deck away from me and worked out the markings.
Just another story of the Man bullying the Little Guy, psht.
There’s not really a moral of the story…maybe ‘do things honestly’? ‘Magic isn’t real’? Or maybe - don’t let Vince handle money without oversight :D
Chat soon :)
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✔️ Real Life Recommendations
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RM Williams - I finally got a pair and I’m now a cowboy. Only recommend these if you can get them on sale because they added like 10cm to my height and 200% to my confidence stat. Or maybe it was just better posture.
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Chicken Crimpy Shapes - I got a pack the other day and frick they are good. Top tier Shape don’t @ me.
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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The 2021 Early-Retirement Update - unsure if y’all know what FIRE is, but it’s a movement called ‘Financial Independence Retiring Early’ - essentially, people who aim to retire as early as possible and be financially independent - e.g. they don’t need to work any more. A lot of it is about reducing expenditure, and doing the sums to make sure your investments keep paying you out well. This blogpost was an interesting breakdown of a popular FIRE blogger who had retired in 2015, and is now back to work in 2021. The unexpected nature of life, y’know?
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From Norse to Horse - gamers rise up…or in this case, horses? In Crusader Kings 2, a player was able to put a horse in charge of the government, the papal council, and a bunch of nobles. Hilarious read!
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Inside a Viral Website - specifically ‘istheshipstillstuck.com’. A really interesting chronology of what the guy needed to do to build the site, put in some ads / affiliate marketing, and then follow along with Arabic news to try and work out if the ship was still stuck or not
To try and get to the bottom of it, I found my way onto an obscure Egyptian news broadcast live stream. It was all in Arabic, but there was a nice guy called Ahmed translating everything in the comments section. The Egyptian President had obviously jumped the gun.
So the Suez Canal Authority started killing time. They were giving every presentation they could think of to distract from the fact the ship was still very much stuck. They talked about their rigorous ship-driver training school. They described how they would react to an oil spill, if there was one. They even started talking about their digital transformation and how they were soon going paperless. It was farcical. And hilarious.