An Out Of This World Perspective...

Floating in space in their spaceship, out beyond the Kuiper Belt, Zig and Zag have been monitoring Earth’s newswires.  They receive a message from Zug at High Command.

ZUG:  Report.  Should we establish first contact with these aliens?

ZIG:  On the face of it, it looks good.  They’ve got satellites, probes visiting other planets, telescopes out in orbit and they might not be too far away from warp technology.

ZUG:  (frowning) I sense a ‘but’ coming…

ZAG:  Well…they’ve hit a global financial crisis.

ZUG:  You what?

ZIG:  Apparently, over the last 10 of their years, they created a mountain of consumer and corporate debt that they can’t repay to each other.  Something to do with exotic instruments - CDOs and CDSs...they like their CDs apparently...their banks are going bust, wealth has gone out the airlock and they’re about to see unemployment go into orbit.

ZUG:  Very unfortunate.  Maybe they’ve learned their lesson, though…?  Not a reason on its own to discount them.

ZAG:  But here’s the best bit.  They’ve recognised that overindebtedness is the cause.

ZUG:  And?

ZIG:  Their solution is…well, for their governments to…(sniggers) borrow lots of money and throw it at their economy.

ZUG:  You’re having me on.

ZAG:  Well, I suppose the translation matrix could always have got it wrong…

ZIG:  No it hasn’t.  I checked.

ZUG: (laughing).  Okay, boys.  This group of aliens is clearly completely stupid.  Pull out.  Maybe we come back in another hundred years or so and see whether they’ve matured….