Zero's gravity experience

Poor Zero the polar bear. For the second time, he's fallen into the moat around his enclosure at the zoo. He was playing with his toys (by one account he had his head in a bucket), wandered too close to the edge and fell in. This has happened before; last time, he wandered around the bottom for a week, then finally climbed the steps back into his enclosure. The zookeepers figure that this time, as last, when he gets sufficiently hungry he will figure out how to escape the moat.

The parallels between Zero's plight and our economy are at first striking. Our economy was happily playing with its toys, its metaphorical head in a bucket ("Sub-prime mortgages are great! Risk can be managed, so let's take on lots!) when it wandered too close to the edge and fell in.

Here is where the parallel breaks down. Unlike Zero's keepers, our national zookeepers panicked, worried about the effect of the drop into the moat, terrified that the zoo would fall apart completely if the economy remained in the moat too long. So they picked the pockets of the zoo's patrons, bought a load of prime steak and tossed it into the moat to encourage a quick climb out.

Unfortunately, while it may encourage a faster escape from the moat, the economy will come out with a taste for steak.

The selection of a new chief zookeeper this year is critical. Will the new keeper try to let the economy get out of the moat with minimal interference, or continue throwing steak at it? Time will tell.