04/01/10 Local Greenwich Economy Grinds To Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion

Some Greenwich Headge Funds Have Ceased To Function Overnight

The trouble began after unexpected existential remarks by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke shocked Americans into realizing that money is, in fact, just a meaningless and intangible social construct.

What began as a routine appearance on the Larry King Show ended with Bernanke passionately disavowing the entire concept of currency, and negating in an instant the very foundation of the local Greenwich economy.


"Though raising interest rates is unlikely at the moment, the Fed will of course act appropriately if we…if we…" Bernanke, who then paused for a moment on the Larry King Show and then shook his head in utter disbelief. "You know what? It doesn't matter. None of this—this so-called 'money'—really matters at all."


"It's just an illusion," a wide-eyed Bernanke added as he removed bills from his wallet and slowly spread them out before him. "Just look at it: Meaningless pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. Worthless."


The CNN talk show host Larry King sat in thunderstruck silence for several moments until he finally shouted out, "Oh my God, he's right. It's all a mirage. All of it—the money, our whole economy—it's all a lie!"


Today as news of the nation's collectively held delusion spread, the economy ground to a halt, with dumbfounded citizens everywhere walking out on their jobs as they contemplated the little green drawings of buildings and dead white men they once used to measure their adequacy and importance as human beings.


At the New York Stock Exchange, this morning's opening bell echoed across a silent floor as the few Greenwich traders who arrived for work out of habit looked up blankly at the meaningless scrolling numbers on the flashing screens above.


"I've spent 25 years in this room yelling 'Buy, buy! Sell, sell!' and for what?" Greenwich resident Michael Bennett said. "All I've done is move arbitrary designations of wealth from one column to another, wasting my life chasing this unattainable hallucination of wealth."


"What a cruel cosmic joke," he added. "I'm going home to hug my daughter."


Sources at Greenwich Town Hall said First Selectman Peter Tesei was "still trying to get his head around all this" and was in seclusion with his coin collection, muttering "it's just metal, it's just metal" over and over again.


"The First Selectman will be making a statement very soon," town administrator John Crary told reporters. "At the moment, though, his mind is just too blown to comment."


A few Greenwich banks have remained open, though most teller windows are unmanned due to a lack of interest in transactions involving mere scraps of paper or, worse, decimal points and computer data signifying mere scraps of paper. At the Chase Bank branch at 500 West Putnam Avenue, curious former customers wandered aimlessly through a large empty vault, while several would-be robbers of a Chase bank in Old Greenwich put their guns down and exited the building hand in hand with a security guard, laughing over the inherent absurdity of the idea of $100 bills.


Likewise, the real estate industry has all but vanished, with mortgage lenders seeing no reason to stop people from reclaiming their foreclosed-upon homes.

"I don't even know what we were thinking in the first place," said real estate blogger Chris Fountain, as he jimmyed open a door to allow a single mother and her five children to move back into their house. "A bunch of people sign a bunch of papers, and now this family has no place to live? That's just plain ludicrous."


The realization that money is nothing more than an elaborate head game seems to have penetrated the entire town: In Byram, for instance, a collection agent reportedly broke down in joyful sobs when he informed a woman on the other end of the phone that he had absolutely no reason to harass her anymore, as her debt was no longer comprehensible.


For some Greenwich residents, the fog of disbelief surrounding the nation's epiphany has begun to lift, with many building new lives free from the illusion of money.



"It's back to basics for me," Sam Romeo of Cos Cob said. "I'm going to till the soil for my own sustenance and get anything else I need by bartering. If I want milk, I'll pay for it in tomatoes. If need a new hoe, I'll pay for it in lettuce."


When asked, hypothetically, how he would pay for complicated life-saving surgery for a loved one, Romeo seemed uncertain.

"That's a lot of vegetables, isn't it?" he said


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