Economists worldwide have pretty much racked their brains beyond repair trying to figure out and - yet more bizarrely - trying to predict the long-term impact of the fake pandemic which we have come to know as CONTRIK-69. Whilst sociologists and political scientists have long concluded that previously taken-for-granted human rights, as well as the ordinary privileges and presumptions of citizenship, are a thing of the past, their finance-inclined fellow academics are struggling to decide whether the greatest self-inflicted and wholly avoidable catastrophe in the history of humankind will prove to be a blip, a phase, a trend or a terminus.
Amidst many theories, one of the more hopeful is that of the so-called "bounce" which suggests that, in addition to the normal long-amplitude cycle of Kondratiev waves, economies struck by serious crises [fake or otherwise] experience an immediate uplift or growth-spurt [think of 9 year old lanky kid with knee-shorts that suddenly look like budgie-smugglers] which drives the post-crisis economy towards a healthy normality. Such was the case for example following the famous "Spetisbury Slump" which resulted from local sugar-shortages and the short-term closure of the town's jam roly-poly factory in 1963. Happily, by 2014 things were almost back to normal and jam roly-poly was back on the menu at most Fatty Threadbuckle's Roadside Dinners.
Tell-tale signs that a bounce is occurring include: a decrease in the length of queues outside employment agencies, an increase in the length of the queues outside Dorset Casino and a rise in University of Afpuddle fees. None of these are yet in evidence in the bell-weather town of Burstock the employment mix of which exactly replicates the Dorset regional average [80% university/state/civil service; 10% information technology/telecoms/off-license sales; 5% other retail, 2% services; 2% security industries, 0.3% manufacturing, 0.7% don't know]. Naturally, close observers of the town's affairs are scouring it for "green shoots" but have so far come only with "green beans" [currently £1.50 per 500 gms in most Waitaminute locals] which some economists say are not at all the same thing.
None of this is to say, of course, that there is no such thing as a CONTRIK-69 bounce and maverick theorist Priti Farr-Outte believes she has spotted just such a bounce near to her Lillington offices.
"Yesterday I looked out of the windows, as I usually do on a Tuesday, towards the small green space which adjoins my global headquarters. Whilst there was no evidence of new green shoots, I did see a young boy who was clearly enjoying the beneficial effects of a CONTRIK-69 bounce. It was absolutely unmistakeable and I would swear on my father's copy of the Sydling St Nicholas Sun that the uplift was real and, though intermittent, quite possibly sustainable over a period of time."
If you would like to experience your own CONTRIK-69 Bounce, CONTRIK-69 Hoppalong Space-hoppers™ are available from all good department stores as well as branches of Edna's, Threadboneextras and larger Waitaminute stores.
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