My Bailout Metaphor

A tall man wearing a top hat opens the theatre in the late afternoon. A crowd outside wonders at the show and the tall man promises a great performance. The crowd mulls around and buys tickets for the show. The stage is full of performers, but there are younger ones and foreign ones on the side of the stage waiting for the chance to perform. The show attracts enough attention that it reopens daily and crowds fill the seats. However the performers desire more income so they seek more daring feats to drive up the ticket prices. Suddenly the act includes nooses dangling on stage that performers routinely stick their heads into while they perform. The crowds are intrigued and pay more to see the new act.

One day a trap door on stage opens while a performer has his head in a noose. He hangs in full sight of everyone. The tall man in the top hat reassures the crowd that everything is OK, but the next day the incident repeats again and this time the performer actually dies on stage. During intermission the tall man explains to the crowd that what the proper course of action is to buy longer ropes for the nooses and a complex spring mechanisms to trigger a release of the extra length should the trap doors even open again. He continues to explain that this expense must be paid by higher ticket prices. Someone asks about the injured performer and receives an explanation that the tall man will keep him in the act with a neck brace and a set of crutches, again paid by with higher ticket prices. The tall man explains that this is not the time to change the performers, nor change the act nor the stage, all that is really required to make everything safe again is longer nooses.