A Modern Fairytale
There was a beautiful scenic village in the middle of the country that was the pride of everyone that lived there. In fact the village was so beautiful that everyone wanted to live there.
One of the lords who owned land outside the town decided that it was a good idea to make the village even bigger so he asked his friends to buy some of his land and build new cottages outside the town. He asked other friends to give the first friends money so they could buy his land and start building. The builder friend became friendly with the banker friend and asked him if he could lend money to the villagers so they buy these houses and pay for them over 30 years. Even villagers who already had a cottage could buy another cottage if they wanted to and they could pay for them over 30 years.
The lord, the builder and the banker told the villagers that it was a fabulous idea for them to buy these cottages and pay for them over 30 years. They were not to worry as they would always have good jobs that paid good money so they could pay for these cottages and look after their families as well.
The banker friend told the builder friend that he could charge the villagers a lot for the cottages as they had 30 years to pay for them and he was happy to lend them that sort of money. After all the more money he could lend them the more money he would make and that would make both of them very happy and even better friends. The lord and the builder and the banker ordered the finest food and the finest wine and celebrated their new friendship every night in their new castles and planned on building even more cottages in more villages.
All the friends were happy and they started building lots and lots of new cottages outside the village. The heavy machines drove through the town every day as they brought materials to build the new cottages. Every time they drove through the beautiful village a hole opened up in the middle of the village that just got bigger and bigger.
Everyone was confused because everyone was supposed to be happy – the lord, the builder friend, the banker friend and the people who could buy their houses over 30 years. So, why was a big dangerous hole opening up in the middle of the village, that no one was doing anything about?
The other problem was that the beautiful village wasn’t so beautiful any more because of the big hole, which was very ugly. Some of the villagers who wanted to buy the new cottages changed their minds and many of those who had bought them were sorry that they had.
The villagers were worried about the hole so they asked a few labourers to have a look at it to see what they could do with it.
Not able to see clearly to the bottom they decided they better call some experts to see exactly how big the hole was so they know knew exactly what quantity of materials they had better order to fill in the hole.
The materials were quite expensive so the villagers asked the lord, the builder and the banker for money so they could buy them to fix the hole. After all the villagers felt it was ok to ask them as they felt the hole was because of all the building.
Unfortunately and for some reason neither the lord or the builder or the banker had any money. At least that is what they told the villagers.
The villagers were very confused, angry and upset but because the hole was so dangerous, they went to the King of all the land and explained to them how worried they were as the hole was very dangerous and that it needed to be filled in.
The King told them that even though the hole was not their fault he was going to bring in a new “Hole Tax” so that he could collect money from them to fix the hole.
The Lord, the Builders and the Bank friends told the King that they couldn’t pay the new “Hole Tax” because they had no money. He said fine very quickly. They then had some food and wine in his castle.
The villagers who had bought the new houses and were paying for them over 30 years were worried as they had very little money and they felt they couldn’t afford to pay the “Hole Tax”.
One of the villagers went home and was very upset because he was so worried that he would not have any money for paying the “Hole Tax” and feed his family as well.
His little girl saw him crying and asked why he was upset?
He told her the story about the hole and he did his best to explain to her what happened.
“Where is all the money gone?” she said after listening to his story “Someone must have it, after all”
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications
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