Cat and Mouse - a poem

Cat and Mouse

by Susan Paczek


Beepbeep the cat looks from left to right
Scanning her prey that's frozen with fright

Here on the kitchen floor of my house
Is a real-life game of cat and mouse

The mouse has earned my sympathy
"It's doomed" I think, nowhere to flee

His dark eyes glisten, he sits in stillness
I assume this ends in a bloody mess

The cat is waiting for the mouse to go
To sink in a claw with her first blow

But before she can claim her prize to keep
With unseen force, the mouse makes a leap

He launches himself towards the wall
And through a crack to the basement hall

Where he can find his nest and tell his wife
How lucky he is to have kept his life:

"If I had stayed put I would have died!
But I took a leap! Thank God I tried!"

Beepbeep - photo by Brendan Labelle

Cry Me A River - a poem

Cry Me A River


by Susan Paczek

The river passes wordlessly
Past my house, towards the sea

Under ducks and along drinking deer
Over turtles and lost fishing gear

It has no words, but still can share
All it has heard between here and there

"Darling, let's cut down all the trees
Along the river so we can see...
The beautiful view out of our window
We'll drink our coffee, watch the river go..."

The river hears all sorts of chatter
Of "just this bit" and "once won't matter"

It rolls past someone who thinks "it's just one fish"
"Salmon will taste so good in my breakfast dish"

It hears "This fertilizer makes the lawn so green!"
and "Wear gloves, but this gets the house really clean"

It carries downstream all the trash, goop and grime
Injected into its body "Just one time"

All the secrets of the river's harm
Collect like scars on a cutter's arm

To be deposited into the sea at last
With secrets from other rivers, slow and fast

Only to rise again in the form of clouds
That blanket the horizon in thick, grey shrouds

Until the wind blows, setting them free
Back to the land, away from the sea

 And over my house rain falls from the sky
That's how the river is allowed to cry

Bear River Outflow (Yarmouth County), Oil on board by Helen Opie

More Giustra and Nova Scotian Seeds, Less Empire and Emera Please... a response to Ian Thompson's latest letter in the Herald

I haven't blogged about the news lately, thinking from now on I am  just going to translate my opinions into poems and Monkey Stories.   But I can't stop thinking about something in Ian Thomspon's most recent letter in the Chronicle Herald Magazine: "More Exports, Not More Government".

The last time Ian wrote a letter I got so excited that I wrote two blog posts, "The Nova Scotia Pottery Emergency" and another one contemplating more ideas for value-added exports.  

I'm not pretending for a minute that craft is the answer to all of Nova Scotia's issues but if we're calling for more exports, figuring out some things that could be manufactured here to export could be a good start.

Being a member of the private sector, I am a big fan of the private sector and concur with the theme of this recent letter.  What surprised me, though, was that Empire and Emera are on Ian's awesome-list of companies

To quote his letter:

We should also pray for more Michelins. And encourage growth of a few more dozen companies like Clearwater, Oxford Frozen Foods, Emera, Empire, Stanfield’s, Newfoundland Capital, LED Roadway Lighting, Nautel, Scotia Investments and its offspring, Acadian Seaplants, Protocase, A.F. Theriault & Son, Tri-Star, Seaboard, High Liner, IMP, Chorus Aviation, the Shaw Group, Velsoft and Cherubini.

Ian! What's up?

Why do we need more companies like Emera?  This is the parent company for Nova Scotia Power, which supplies the province's electricity.  Does anyone in Nova Scotia actually like Nova Scotia Power?  Haven't they given the boot to Nova Scotian linesmen while ratcheting up power rates, and giving their executives hefty salary increases? 

I suppose we could use another Emera-type company to compete with Emera and hopefully lower power rates.

Why more companies like Sobey's-controlled Empire though?  This is the parent company to Crombie REIT which has hoofed small-businesses out of their commercial properties to make way for American chains.  They've also sidled up to American chain Target, to replace Canadian-owned Zellers.  Apparently Target Canada isn't as great as Target in the states, so they haven't been doing so well according to this CTV article.  

It seems odd to me that Empire/Sobeys would be supplying groceries and supporting Target, who is now their competition.  I'm not convinced that aiding an American big box store is the most efficient, long-term use of a Canadian company's resources. 

And if we think things are tough in Nova Scotia here's a recent Salon article about the economy in the states: You Call This Middle Class? "I'm Trying Not To Lose My House"

Not sure Corporate America is the kid in the sandbox I'd want to be playing with.

Over the past couple of months I've gotten the impression from talking to various people that any public critique of the Sobeys in this province is frowned upon.  

That's understandable I suppose.  There there, Sobeys family. Yes you do make sandwiches, sushi and black forest cakes that are all delicious while employing a lot of people and giving back to the community, and you fund an art award and probably lots of other good stuff for the province.

I just wish that the businesspeople of Nova Scotia would all try to be a bit more altruistic and long-term-big-picture-thinking towards other Nova Scotians; residents and business owners alike.  

Maybe Emera could offer better power rates instead of constant rate hikes that are delivered amidst news of executive salary increases.  

Maybe Empire and Crombie REIT could run their business in a way that would give smaller, local commercial tenants a better chance to stay in business instead of giving them the boot.  

Maybe the entire Nova Scotia private sector could all work together to create a better sandbox for everyone to play in before some Chinese billionaires land here in helicopters and start buying up the whole show like they did in my home province.

After feeling sad about the positive nod towards Emera and Empire, which I reacted to on Sunday by eating a big bag of chips and then taking an 8 hour nap, I got up went online and stumbled across an interview with Frank Giustra on youtube.  This completely cheered me up. 


I liked the interview so much that then I watched this one, where Frank is being interviewed by Peter Legge of BC Business Magazine.
  


Maybe what Nova Scotia could use is a few billionaires with ethics and ideas like Vancouver billionaire Frank Giustra.  

Frank has done some cool things with his money and time, such as starting Lions Gate Entertainment, an Independent Vancouver Film company that produced The Hunger Games.

It turns out that I'm not the first person to have a hunch that the world would be a better place if more rich monkeys could figure out how to share their bananas in ways that help out other monkeys.  

Frank is a fan of the teachings of Andrew Carnegie (1835-1911), the self-made wealthy Scottish-American Industrialist who is responsible for Carnegie hall and a pile of other good stuff. I never looked into Andrew Carnegie's story until last night, but Andrew Carnegie inspired Napolean Hill to write "Think and Grow Rich" (which is a great early book, popular among those who believe in the Law of Attraction).

Carnegie is noted as being a literal 'rags to riches' story and in 1889 he wrote an article called the 'The Gospel of Wealth'.   To quote the wiki article about it: "Carnegie proposed that the best way of dealing with the new phenomenon of wealth inequality was for the wealthy to redistribute their surplus means in a responsible and thoughtful manner."

It is reassuring to see that some rich guy got to thinking in this way!

On another topic, as with the Fabian Calvo video at the end of my most recent Favourite Things list, Frank Giustra mentions food production as something worth investing in.  He's even gone as far as to back this good-looking new magazine Modern Farmer.

Back to Ian's letter, in which he prays for oil...(the black gold kind not the olive kind).

Fossil fuels would be great, who wouldn't love cheaper heating fuel in this province, and jobs of course.  But personally I could only get excited about it if the oil and/or gas were to come out of the ground easily in large quantities that don't foul up our farmland and water in the process.  I'm still not clear on why booty from oil isn't shared more equally among provinces. 

The way I see it, if we don't have gobs of oil we don't have gobs of oil.  If this is the case then praying for oil would be as productive as praying for a mountain chain to spring up so we can have a helicopter skiing industry like in BC, or for residents of Saskatchewan to pray for an inland saltwater sea to form so they can go catch scallops and lobsters.  Why can't the provinces just get along and share the diversity of resources our great country has to offer?

Ian, instead of encouraging Nova Scotians to envy Newfoundland's oil, how about celebrating the rich abundance of good farmland Nova Scotia has?  

We all need to eat, after all. 

Our current food supply as we know it has been highly dependent on industrial farming and the trucking of food for long distances.  These are extremely oil-thirsty activities.   Growing 'organic' food and exploring permaculture would mean we'd need less oil and at the same time be rewarded with healthier food and soil.

Where I'm from in BC much of our very best farmland has been covered over in recent years by townhouses.  Nova Scotia not only has a lot good soil, and a decent growing season, it has very good, very delicious freshwater.  Abundant fresh water is something I'm sure the farmers in California were coveting with their recent drought.  

I think that as consumers grow more conscious of the potential threats of GMOs and more hungry for healthy organic food, the safe farmland, good freshwater, and relatively long growing season of Nova Scotia could turn out to be three of this province's greatest assets.
 
On that note, here is a shout-out to a few companies that got left off of Ian Thompson's list.  Nova Scotian seed companies! Seeds are life and there are a few excellent companies mailing their non-GMO heirloom seeds out all over: Halifax Seed, Hope Seed, Annapolis Seeds,  Incredible Seeds and any others I might have missed.

More healthy happy earth-friendly corporate citizens like these, please! Let's all appreciate this province's farmland and protect it from genetic contamination by Monsanto or from fouling by unsustainable development. 

I think perhaps what needs to happen is more productive interactions between our elder business types stuck in our old paradigms of profiting via resource extraction, and our younger generations who are evolving to listen to and live symbiotically with the earth. 

To be clear, I completely agree with the overall gist of Ian's message.  But here is my twist: government get out of the way unless you're going to help.  Private sector, take a minute to review "The Gospel of Wealth" full article here , then hop in and let's figure some awesome exports that won't wreck the planet, or our minds or our bodies, and/or some awesome systems to drive more dough into the wallets of hard-working Nova Scotians, that would make everyone richer.

Let's go easy on the earth and work with her rather than against her.  If she wants to puke oil or gas at us in a way that doesn't wreck the place, then great, lucky us.  But in any case I think if we can get a few of our money wielding elders to invest in more sustainable sectors (eg organic farming and value-added organically grown food products), Nova Scotia could quickly find itself to be one of Canada's richest provinces, in terms of personal, community and environmental health.

Or maybe it won't, but it could be worth a try, eh?

This Week's Favourite Things! Feb 24th - March 2nd, 2014

Week four of posting some 'favourite things' on my blog!

1. "Baboon Fart Story" by Phronk (who carried out a hypothesis blogged by author Chuck Wendig's idea).  I noticed this story on twitter and got all excited, thinking 'oh, awesome someone else has taken to writing Monkey Stories'.  Haha!  Sort of but not quite. 

Baboon Fart Story is a commentary on how easy it is to self-publish.  It is the work 'Fart' copied 100,000 times, with a picture of a baboon drinking urine on the cover.  Amazon actually sold 21 copies before it was taken down.  Reminds me a bit of Art School somehow.  I think the book is now available on Lulu and while I wouldn't actually want to own a copy, the story made my list this week because I think it's a nice example of creative collaboration and idea-testing made possible by twitter and blogging.  And of course I like the story because of my own recent obsession with writing Monkey Stories.

2.  This CBC National Story about an art exhibit about Canada's oilsands.  The exhibit "An Unkindness" is by a Winnipeg artist Mia Feuer and on display in Washington.  I'm not a big follower of contemporary installation art, but I found this woman's work very compelling!  The oily raven wings are what got to me.  And I love the fact that at the same time that Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems to be muzzling scientists and slashing research budgets, this young artist slipped through the cracks and gets to draw attention to our big dirty money making environmental catastrophe, inviting Washingtonians to literally skate around on oil.  Nice.  But the story makes me wonder if Harper will start slashing arts funding next, and if Canada ironically funded this installation. I can't find out who paid the budget for this project, but find it interesting that is on display in Washington and not Ottawa, so maybe it was American money? And in any case, does it make a difference?

Aha, since googling about this I discovered that despite getting her BFA in Winnipeg, Mia actually lives and works in Washington DC and earned her MFA in Virginia.  More information including funding can be found here.

"An Unkindness" by Mia Feurer, photo by Kate Warren copied here from the Tyee...  it bugs anyone that I'm using this let me know and I'll delete it

Here is a Tyee article about the exhibit with pics


This 'favourite thing' also made me think about Art School and how we seemed to be pushed a lot to come up with conceptual art that 'meant' something.  It was annoying at the time but in this case I like it.  This story makes me realize that art (sculpture, music, writing, dance, etc) really can move people more than a report full of facts and numbers.

3. This poem, called "Our Generation" written by a 14 year old boy in Grade 8 and tweeted by his brother.  I saw the poem on Facebook via a San Fransisco Times article, so that is the link I'll use.  The poem can be read both forwards and backwards.  Cool.  And, poetry! It was interesting to see this because suddenly I'm interested in writing poetry again, I used to write quite a bit and just wrote a rather dark poem this week.  There is something about poetry, like the 140 character limit in twitter, that appeals.  I think it is because it is a concise way to write and deliver messages for folks (both writers and readers) with short attention spans. 

4.  Finally I watched this high energy youtube video last night and really liked it!  A cheerful video about impending economic collapse by Fabian Calvo, aka Fabian4Liberty.  Having grown up hearing all about how WWII affected my Polish family I'm for anyone who advocates for growing their own healthy, organic food.   I checked out some of this guy's Real Estate Investing advice and I don't think it is suitable to Nova Scotia's sluggish market (wholesaling 'deals') but I do want to check out some of this guy's other videos.

Priceless Mother Earth - a poem

  

Priceless Mother Earth

by Susan Paczek

Where are our poets?
Flipping hamburgers with cheese
Where are our dancers?
Dancing to “your order, please?”

Where are our writers?

Selling us cups of coffee
Where are our artists? 
Working checkout number three

Where are our children?
Traveling between school and home
And between this parent and that
Glued to their smart phones

What is for supper?
A plate of GMOs
That make our bodies big
Though our bellies don’t feel full

Who tells us our news?
People working for papers and TV
But hands signing their cheques
Belong to people we don’t see

If we press our creatives
Between high rent and low wages
How can they find time
To write society’s pages?

When can they express
Their souls’ frustrations
While trapped and muzzled
By corporations?

Why do numbers on paper
Get to decide
The value of people
And the course of their lives?

Fancy cars and mansions
Have a lot of worth
Thanks to the pricelessness
Of our Mother Earth

"Sunny Day" by Evgenia Makogon 48" x 48" acrylic on canvas

This Week's Favourite Things! Feb 17th - Feb 23rd, 2014

This is my third week of posting a list of My Favourite things aka things that make me go "ook ook ook" in monkeyspeak.  So far so good!  Stumbled across a few things this week that I really liked!


1. Look, Halifax, look! An Ethical REIT!!  Housing Partnership Equity Trust.  I noticed this on twitter when I posted my last monkey story with hashtag REIT (#REIT).  Sounds like a great initiative.  Folks have formed a REIT that is allowing non-profits to purchase apartment buildings to turn into sustainable, quality, low income housing.  Some big American banks are giving them a hand up with this.  I look forward to seeing how the project goes as I think this could be a helpful solution for the affordable housing crisis happening all over Canada.

2. Twitter and what I like to call "Human Conservation Biology".  I've had a great week of finding exciting websites via twitter, where people have been taking a very big picture approach to Ecology.  Spiritual Ecology and Humans and Nature are two of my favourite pages I've found.  In particular I love the thought of taking a look at the intersection of economics and political factors when considering conservation, as outlined in this Humans and Nature Project: Ecological Political Economy.  It's uplifting to see so many people interested in crossing fields of study looking for ways to improve life on the planet for all life forms sharing it.

3. Danny Gregory The Art of Breakfast.  Thanks to my artist friend Evgenia for telling me about this artist who has posted cool youtube videos such as this one.  I've been on break from my studio, struggling with trying not to just make art for the sake of making money.  Danny's fun attitude towards his art is inspiring.  I look forward to checking out more of his stuff!




4.  Articles by Steven Stosny. Phd and what I believe is his website, Compassion Power.  For anyone who has come from a chaotic background and has ended up in a relationship with someone from a chaotic background (I believe this might be true for a lot of people) I think there is some awesome advice in here. 

5.  Blogger.   I've become smitten with blogger and have begun tagging my posts.  It is just so fun to have a wholly independent platform where I can form opinions and stories to be published instantly to a potential audience of millions.  Even media outlets have responsibilities to their advertisers, government and whoever else pays their bills. I'm in a nice position where I can't get fired.   The monkey stories are becoming a fun way to interpret the way I see the world.   I did just see this Project Eve article today which is food for thought:  7 Symptoms of a Poverty Mentality by Te-Erika Patterson.  Item 7 about 'world-view' makes a point.  So I'm going to try to keep my fun-poking fun, positive and solution orientated... the monkeys always will live happily ever after.

The Story of the Monkeys Who Started a Real Estate Investment Trust

[Note: this is the 3rd of 3 monkey stories I've written so far.  This one is inspired by recent news stories of small businesses getting asked to shuffle along by different REITs in Halifax, Canada.  This week I also watched "Generation Screwed" which aired on CBC's The National's "Bottom Line" which gave some inspiration for part of the story, which is totally made-up.  Here is part one which aired Dec 3rd, and part two which aired this week. 

I've written blog posts about the REIT topic, as well as the affordable housing crisis, over the past 2 months, but writing monkey stories is much more fun.  I do believe this story could have an alternate happy ending where all the monkeys in the forest form "Ethical REITs" and create better opportunities for their kids]


Once upon a time, in the Central Forest, there lived a group of monkeys who spent a lot of time thinking about how they could get more bananas.

One day these monkeys met for fruit punch and banana cake, to talk about ideas for getting more bananas.

One of the monkeys, named Cartwheel, had an idea.  

"I know!" said Cartwheel to the other monkeys, "We could collect bananas from all sorts of monkeys from all of the forests, and use these bananas to buy up trees that other monkeys rent for their homes or monkey businesses.  Then we can collect the rent, pay a few bananas back to the monkeys that gave us their bananas, but also take bananas for ourselves and buy up more trees!"

"OOK OOK OOK OOK OOK!!" said all of the monkeys, nodding their heads, thumping their chests and jumping up and down in agreement.  

One monkey said "That is a GOOD idea Cartwheel!! So many monkeys and monkey businesses need to pay rent, so why not get their bananas!"

Another monkey said "Yes! And it will be an excellent way to make sure that we all have enough bananas for when we retire from our jobs! We will all need to collect pension money one day.  This thing will help us make sure that we will be able to do that!!  What shall we call this glorious thing, Cartwheel?"

"Well" said Cartwheel. "Trees are Real Estate. And we are investing bananas.  And we want monkeys to trust us with their bananas to invest. And the trees are in the forest.  So how about we call this glorious thing the 'Monkey Forest Real Estate Investment Trust?'"

"EEEK EEEK EEEK AAAACKK OOOK EEEEECK AAAAKK!!!" exclaimed all of the monkeys at the meeting. 

"It is a PERFECT name!! We love it!!"  said all the monkeys, jumping up and down thumping their chests.

"Monkey Forest Real Estate Investment Trust! Monkey Forest Real Estate Investment Trust!!!"  they all chanted in between choruses of "OOOK OOOK OOOK and EEECK AAACK AAACK"

All of the monkeys gobbled up the rest of the banana cake in excitement, swilled down the fruit punch and hurried home to tell their spouses.

"Monkey Forest Real Estate Investment Trust is going to make us RICH!"  They said to their spouses when they got back to their trees.  "OOOK OOK OOK It will help us make sure we can help our kids go to Monkey University!"

Time went on and this group of monkeys from the Central Forest did start the Monkey Forest Real Estate Investment Trust.

All of the monkeys agreed that Cartwheel should be the "Chief Monkey" of the Monkey Forest Real Estate Investment Trust (MFREIT for short).

Cartwheel was an excellent Chief Monkey.  He gathered up bananas from all sorts of monkeys and started buying up lots of trees.

"This is such an excellent idea!" the other monkeys kept saying.  "So many monkeys pay rent, why not pay rent to our MFREIT!  We're going to make so many bananas it isn't even funny!" 

The monkeys hired other monkeys to collect rent from all of the monkeys and monkey businesses that rented trees from them.  There were a lot of bananas coming in!

"This is working out splendidly" said Cartwheel at the meetings.  "MFREIT is buying up lots of trees.  We are making lots of bananas for our investors.  In fact,  any investor who gave us 100 bananas at the beginning of this year, now has 120 bananas.  That is an increase of 20 per cent!  That is an excellent investment!"

"20 percent!! 20 percent!! OOOK OOK OOOK OOK" all of the monkeys chorused.  "20 extra bananas for 100 bananas is 20 percent!!!!  That IS a SPLENDID Investment!!! OOOK OOK OOK!!!"

Word quickly spread through the forest that MFREIT was delivering a 20 percent return, so soon lots of monkeys, including monkeys in charge of pension funds decided it was a good idea to give their extra bananas to MFREIT, in order to make sure that they would have plenty of bananas later in life when they would be retired from their jobs.

More time passed, and led by Cartwheel, the monkeys of MFREIT bought more and more trees.  They bought giant trees full of apartments, and clusters of trees that contained many monkey businesses in shopping malls.

It was a lot of work!   So Cartwheel and the other monkeys in charge felt that it was only fair that they kept enough bananas for themselves in order to afford giant tree-mansions, expensive suits, fancy cars, and water-skiing cruises.

Giant tree-mansions, expensive suits, fancy cars and water-skiing cruises all cost a lot of bananas.  So the monkeys in charge of MFREIT would make sure that the monkeys collecting bananas from tenants would raise the rents as often as they could.

"But I can't pay this much rent!! OOOK OOOK OOOOK" some of the monkeys and monkey business owners would say.  The monkeys and monkey business owners who would receive these rent increases were often very alarmed!

Whenever this happened, the monkey agent in charge of MFREIT would say "I am sorry monkey, but if you can't pay more rent, then you will have to gather up all of your things and find another tree to move to.  I am so sorry, this isn't my tree you know.  I just work for MFREIT."

"MFREIT?" Some monkeys would say, unaware that MFREIT had bought their tree.  "What is that?"

"Monkey Forest Real Estate Investment Trust.  Monkey Forest Real Estate Investment Trust helps lots of monkeys in the forest, you know." the monkey agent would say.

"Oh." the monkeys would say, thinking maybe MFREIT stood for something else.  And then these monkeys would either have to figure out how to pay more rent, or else move from the tree they were renting.

MFREIT still managed to buy more and more trees, and even started building massive tree-apartment complexes and malls because they knew they could rent these spaces out to giant businesses that would pay a lot of rent!!

"OOOK OOK OOK!! 20 percent!!!"  The monkeys would chorus at their meetings.  "OOOK We MUST keep making 20 percent!!!"

And so the monkey agents were instructed to do things such as tell the owners of monkey businesses that they had to move their business.

"Why?? I've always paid my rent!" The monkey business owners would say.  "All of my customers are used to coming here, where am I supposed to go?"

"Well don't blame me," the monkey agent would say, "I just work for MFREIT.  MFREIT is important.  MFREIT helps lots of monkeys.  MFREIT needs to make a lot of bananas and there are many big businesses from the Southern Forest that can pay much bigger rent than you can.  So you need to go."

"Wow." The monkey business owners would say "you don't seem to be a good company."

"Oh yes we're a good company" the agent from MFREIT would then say "Every year we raise bananas for monkeys in need by having events where we hang from our tails from tall trees for long periods of time.  It is dangerous so people give us lots of bananas to give to charity.  We are a very good company.  OOOK OOOK OOK."

More time passed, and the monkeys who started MFREIT had gotten older.  These monkeys had gotten so old that they were thinking about retirement.  They were able to send their kids to Monkey University, but after their kids finished Monkey University, their kids were having a hard time finding jobs and places to live.  Not only that, Monkey University had become very expensive so a lot of them had big student loans and owed many, many bananas to the Bank of Monkeys (BMO).

"OOOK OOK OOOK" some of the older monkeys would say to eachother at work "I don't understand our kids.  They live in our basement.  OOOK when I was their age I was working a good job.  I had my own tree."

It was a big problem!! 43 percent of adult monkey kids were still living in their parents trees!  It was such a big problem that the Monkey News Network even gathered four very smart panelists together to talk about the problem in a two part series called "What is Wrong With Our Young Monkeys?"

"Monkey parents should just kick their kids out of their trees!" said one panelist.  "When I was their age, I had a job!"

A young monkey called into the show, over its computer, with a video-question.

"Is it possible that MFREIT could be part of why it is so hard for monkey kids to move out of their parents' trees? I mean most of the businesses are giant businesses from the Southern Forest now and they don't pay their employees very much.  Just the minimum amount of bananas per hour.  And it is very expensive to rent a tree, because rents are so expensive now.  Also Monkey University costs many many many more bananas than it would have when you went to Monkey University.  What do you think about that, panelists?"

The panelists, who were all invested in MFREIT for their pensions said:

"OOOK OOK OOK OOOK we think you are a VERY stupid monkey.  We NEED MFREIT to fund our retirement!! How dare you suggest such a thing, stupid monkey?"

The big, white-haired chimpanzee who was leading the discussion was so upset by this question that it took a big poop right into its hand and flung it at the television screen that showed the young monkey asking the question.

"Bad monkey!!" yelled the white-haired chimpanzee towards the television screen that showed the young monkey asking the question, "Shame on you.  Shame.  MFREIT is an excellent company didn't you know they hang upside down from very tall trees once a year to raise bananas for charity?  And they are funding my retirement.  What is wrong with you??"

"Bad, stupid monkey" the other panelists agreed.

And that was the end of that discussion.

More time passed.  The older monkeys had to get used to the younger monkeys living in their trees with them.  It would be okay, they thought, soon they would be retired.  They would cash all of their bananas out of MFREIT and have so many bananas that maybe they could even help their kids find their own tree.

But unfortunately, meanwhile MFREIT had been borrowing more and more bananas from BMO (The Bank of Monkeys) to build bigger, and bigger tree-apartments and shopping malls.

"OOK OOK OOK" Cartwheel would say at meetings "Brand new big tree-apartments and big shopping malls mean big rent!!  There will be lots of bananas for everyone!!"

"OOOK OOK OOK" all the monkeys who worked with Cartwheel would chorus in agreement.

"That is good, Cartwheel, because we need more bananas!" Said the monkey in charge of bananas for the company.   "It has been awhile since monkeys giving us 100 bananas at the beginning of the year would get 120 bananas.  We don't want the monkey investors to stop trusting Monkey Forest Real Estate Investment Trust!" 

Unfortunately, these brand-new big-tree apartments and big shopping malls cost so much to rent that the Monkey Businesses who could rent them could only pay very few bananas to their workers.  And so many monkeys had to pay high rent, and had low wages that they didn't have hardly any bananas left over to spend at the big new shopping malls.  A lot of the trees sat empty!  Soon MFREIT wasn't making 20 percent, it was losing bananas for its investors!

Many investors who thought they would be able to retire with the bananas they gave to MFREIT found out that they didn't have nearly as many bananas as they thought they would!

So in the end, all of the monkey families learned to live together, the older monkeys who had been "rich" and the younger monkeys who didn't get a chance.  They moved from the big cities in the middle of the forests back out to small villages at the forest edges, where trees didn't cost a lot of bananas to own or rent, and where it was even possible to own their own monkey-businesses without having to pay rent!  They realized it really didn't take much to make them happy.

All they really needed was a tree to sleep in, some bananas to eat, and eachother.  All of the monkeys realized this, and they all lived happily ever after.

The End.