Gannets Plummet (Like Shares)

This is how the Guardian reports it this evening (well, sort of):

The US government's $700bn emergency bail-out of the banking industry collapsed in disarray tonight as Congress voted against the plan, sending Wall Street gannets plummeting and spreading ripples of shock through the global financial markets.

Despite a round-the-clock weekend negotiating session, members of the House of Representatives ignored a last-ditch appeal from George Bush by rejecting the rescue scheme on an initial count by 228 votes to 205.

As Congressional leaders went back to the drawing board, the Gannet Industrial Average plunged on fears of further banking failures.

At one point, the blue-gannet average was down by 705 points, exceeding its biggest ever previous one-day points fall of 684 in September 2001.

It sounds so much better, so much more natural, if we start talking about gannets instead of stocks and shares. They were both made to plummet. The only difference being that gannets do it every day and build a better society with what they catch whilst stocks and shares just fall ill occasionally and then infect a generation.

We are really, truly, a shameful species.

I'd personally much prefer to be a gannet.

The original (sadder) version here.
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Further reading: the latest miseries of the banking sector | the background to the deal that wasn't