Judge to rule on stock market surrealism

News Clipping: 20/11/08

Judge Bernard Ashbury Giles has concluded the hearing on stock market surrealism and is set to announce his verdict on December 15th. Judge Giles is deliberating the case brought by the accusant Mrs Doris Green, a shop proprioter from Swansea, that the world economic system “doesn’t make any sense,” and with its abstract numbers effecting the livelihoods of billions of people is “bloody surreal”. Prosecutor Arnold Johnson put forward the case in which he had to prove by definition that the stock market is; 1. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of surrealism. And, 2, that it has the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a dream; is unreal or fantastic.

On the first count Johnson described the stock market as being like an “enourmous bulky elephant on long spindly legs” invoking imagery of surrealist artist Salvidor Dali. Johnson stated that although the elephant looks “fascinating in freakish way” in reality the creature would be “silly” and not the best model to base an monetary exchange system on.

For the second count Johnson focused on the stock market’s apparent “humanity” in its reactions to world events. “Numbers aren’t sympathetic, they can’t empathise with victims of war in oil rich countries or the price of bread in poor countries. Numbers are fixed symbols to indicate exactly what they indicate and no more. A six will never be a nine, unless you turn it upside down, of course”

Immediately following Johnson’s statement the stock market took a sharp 3 point rise across the board as brokers turned all sixes upside down.

In the defence team, prime numbers 7, 31, 59 and centre heptagonal prime 34,651, contravened with their argument that the FTSE Index and Dow Jones were “where they lived” and that they and all other numerical beings deserved “a quantifiable amount of happiness too, for god’s sake.” They placed the value of happiness at an inflated £68.35 per share.