The World's First Trillion Dollar Company Meets The World's Trillionth Naughty Underage Photo Scandal!

I can't act like I really want to do this post today. To be honest, the more I do this job, the more I feel like that crazy guy who recorded his life in 5-minute intervals crossed with a batshit Ron Paul supporter, and just because it turns out there are quite a lot of ardent Ron Paul supporters doesn't always make me feel much better, especially on a day like this, when it's been pitch black outside since, like, 3 p.m., Colbert pussied out of the election due to the Writer's Strike due to bring us MORE FUCKING REALITY TV, as if we need more reality TV when we have high school cheerleading coaches like Victoria Schattauer, and the world's first trillion dollar company was established. and its name is PetroChina. And maybe we should talk about that for a minute, because it's a worthwhile lesson in the Wisdom of Crowds, Lack Thereof Department. PetroChina, the state-owned oil company of China, has been publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange for years now, and investors generally bought and sold its stock at a discount to that of similarly-productive Exxon Mobile — which had previously been the world's most valuable company at $500 billion in market capitalization — due generally to the "decades of state ownership" thing.

But then the company listed its shares on the Shanghai stock exchange, so the proletariat could sink its cash into the company's shares. And overnight, the value of the company more than doubled! Like, half a trillion dollars of pretend "value" just appeared out of nowhere, like the company had won the Powerball times a zillion, and suddenly everything is possible! Anyhow, which is to say the theme I'm trying to go for is how quickly shit can change. Martial law can be declared, a much-beloved fictional character from a popular series of children's books can turn out to be gay, and Dick Cheney can decide that thing he said a few years ago about capturing Saddam Hussein not being worth the casualties was totally false, only to be totally proven he was right the first time WTF??!?!?!!!

And shit, even Hillary Clinton can lose a few points at the polls, Imus and Rosie can return in triumph and Giuliani can do something even stupider than he did yesterday with no discernible consequence.

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