Last week I talked about cryptozoological species, and this week I might as well talk about cryptocurrency, which is what cryptozoological species use to pay for stuff, like when the Loch Ness Monster needs to pay for dry cleaning. Just kidding, I suspect Nessie wouldn’t conduct commerce with cryptocurrency; even a pea-brained dinosaur would have more sense than to use a currency that only gives you ten guesses at your password before it locks away your fortune permanently (really, millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin have been lost forever because people can’t remember their password.)
But people are gullible, especially smart people. Think about all the really smart people who thought Sam Bankman-fried was the second-coming of Warren Buffet, when really he was just the second-coming of Bernie Madoff.
And think about all the normally sensible folks who bought emus several decades ago. Emus, yes, emus were supposed to compete with cows as the other red meat. At one point during the emu craze, breeding emus cost $25,000 a piece. I’m not an expert in math, but if a bird costs $25,000, then the drumstick is going to be price-prohibitive at the grocery store. I guess that explains why a feral emu once roamed the woods in the upper end of my county; some say it escaped but most likely it was set loose when the emu market went bust. Apparently, Americans didn’t like paying $1,000 per pound for poultry, even if it was red meat.
Recently, over in India, some major breakthroughs in the art of swindling occurred when enterprising con men combined a Ponzi scheme with old-fashioned emu hype. Two men were sentenced to twenty years in jail for scamming aspiring emu farmers out of six million dollars. For a mere $500,000 they would give farmers twenty emu chicks for breeding purposes, in exchange for the promise of buying back future chicks at astronomical prices. Of course, the only way that scam works is by finding more gullible people to invest in chicks, meaning it’s a tried-and-true Ponzi scheme dressed up in emu feathers. I give them points for creativity.
Anyway, I’m not sure what the point of this post is, but if any you where thinking about investing your life savings in an Emu farm, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. In fact, consider this a public service announcement.
Just curious: Are alpacas the same? They seem to be quite popular! But their wool is very nice (and expensive), and you don’t have to kill them to get it.
Well, I’m not sure if it’s a ponzi scheme, but I’m not sure alpacas are exactly profitable either. There is a steady stream of alpacas that go through the sale barn–which makes me wonder if the folks getting rid of them have realized that
Funny coincidence: I started reading a book the other day. . .one of the main characters wants to start a emu farm. It’s set in Carthage. I kept trying to remember where I had read about emu farms recently. . . . .
I haven’t read the book but suspect the main character will end up poor and destitute 😉
Only gullible dopes sink their fortunes into emus. Ostriches are where it’s at.
Yep, emu’s are just a poor man’s ostrich, lol
I Had friends with emus once – he carved the eggs and sold pricey works of art!
Raising emus to carve their eggs into pricey works of art–now that is a strange career path, lol