Two wise men have a little chat on Iran’s Hormuz toll
Socrates meets Trump in the street… Donald, you’ve been a father five times? “Yes.” And what did fatherhood teach you? “To keep at it, hehe.” No, I meant, did you learn something about responsibility? “Does it look like?” I’m not making myself clear, perhaps. Let me try again. Donald, you walk into a curio shop with one of your kids, what do you do? “I know what you mean now. I pick up the little one, wrap my big right arm around their chest so that they can’t flail their arms, and my big left arm around their legs, so that they can’t kick. And you know, Socrates – what a goofy name, by the way – the brilliant part is that I tuck my own elbows in while I’m about it. I do it so beautifully.”
I’m sure you do, Donald, but why? “Because I don’t want them to break anything. Not a vase, nor a plate. Those places are a total rip-off. They’ve got little shiny things worth nothing, labelled hundreds of dollars. I’m not a fool, you know. In fact, I’m a genius.”
So, if you broke one of those things, or your kid did, you’d have to pay? “Hell, yes, they’ve got those signs everywhere – ‘Nice to see, good to hold, once broken, consider sold’.” And is that a good rule, Donald? “It seems fair enough. If you broke something in one of my towers, I’d make you pay.”
You’re a very fair man, Donald. Now, what do you say about breaking Hormuz? “Oh, that’s a beauty. We’ve pounded the ancient land of Iran back to the Dark Ages. They’re so scared, they’ve been begging me, sir, please, please, stop.”
Wait, Donald. Hormuz was always open. Then you came and broke it. Now the Iranians are tolling everyone who uses it. Who should pick up the tab? “I’ve said nobody should pay.”
Well, they don’t have a choice, Donald. People need to buy and sell oil and stuff. So, who ought to pay the bill? “You tell me, wise man.” Isn’t it obvious? By the curio shop rule, you broke it, so you pay everyone’s toll. “Are you crazy? I can’t do that.”
Why not? Just UPI. Ships can paint QR codes on their decks, and your drones can pay as they pass. “No, no. I wasn’t even there, nor my kids. I didn’t break anything. It was Bibi.”
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
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