Surviving 2000

Like castaways stranded on a desert island, exploration and mining companies began the year 2000 struggling for survival and longing for a return to the days of gold and glory. As they pondered the fickleness of fate, the Good Ship Dot-Com steamed past, loaded with giddy investors bound for the Island of Big Returns.

“Life isn’t fair!” shouted an obviously malnourished junior member of the Golden Goose tribe. “Those used to be our investors!”

“Not anymore,” snorted a muscular Heavy Metal tribesman. “You ain’t been laying enough eggs to earn your keep, and they ain’t always golden, if you catch my salted drift. And there’s too damn many of you.”

The Golden Goose scouting team fell silent. It was true, but they didn’t enjoy having their noses rubbed in it by the boring Base Men. So they trooped back to their own beach, only to find that the Top-Tier tribesman had staked 90% of it, including all the best coconut trees. “We’re not safe anywhere,” one junior grumbled. “Not even among our own kind.”

“They’re old and staid,” another scoffed, puffing up his chest. “We’re young and nimble. We’ll outwit, outsmart and outplay them. When’s the last time they caught a big fish? And they can’t hide in the hedge with their Immunity Idols forever.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, the Heavy Metal tribesmen began eyeing the young and vulnerable among their own kind. “Bigger really is better,” they chanted as they danced around the fire. “We must merge to get a bigger market cap than Starbucks. That’s how we’ll get investors back to our island.”

Many ideas were offered, but after a time it became obvious that nobody was willing to slide down the corporate vine for the greater good. It became obvious that consolidation made little sense if the resulting entity was saddled with fifty chiefs and two-hundred vice-chiefs. The exercise in consensus-building ended in failure, though some felt the effort was good practice because the New Age Stakeholders were due to sail in shortly from the industry-free Island of Utopia.

“I’ve had it with those parasitic pirates,” an elder tribesmen shouted, before being hauled away to a re-education camp for sensitivity training.

The Nickel Twins, the island’s notorious sibling rivals, left the squabbling to find their own proprietary ways to drown out a threatening drumbeat coming from Down Under, a mysterious island that worshipped water more than fire.

As resources grew scarce, some tribesmen began building rafts to leave the island. By the time both tribes met for their annual powwow in March, a flotilla had already set sail for greener islands. One after another, junior companies shed their mineral properties and announced dot.com acquisitions that seemed to get progressively weirder as time progressed. “You can now buy dog food on the Internet,” one trumpeted. Another crowed that it was now possible to “video conference” with lovely ladies for an immodest fee.

Brokerage firms scrambled to replace their stratabound analysts with ones capable of understanding the cyber-gobbledygook about encryption, firewalls and digital compression. Money flowed to the cyber-world like water and was treated about as casually, though everyone pretended not to notice. It was cute to see twenty-year-olds with pony-tails running companies with bigger market caps than most islands. It was safe, too, because they were mature twenty-year-olds. They had penthouses and Porsches.

“The sun has set on the Old Economy and risen on the New Economy,” perky economists crowed in the newspapers. “We can have it all forever and ever! Low inflation, huge growth, giant returns. It’s a paradigm shift!”

The giddiness continued even after the spiritual leader of the Golden Goose tribe reminded the world that there were only two kinds of companies: ones that could spare a dime and ones that couldn’t. His company made tons of dimes, thanks to the best Immunity Idols on the island.

As the year progressed, the spiritual leader’s warning took hold, though not to the benefit of the Golden Goose tribe. The Heavy Metal tribesmen were grabbing the attention, thanks to the trickle-down effect from the Island of Big Returns. The masses there were using their stock winnings to build really big huts loaded with metal gadgets and gizmos. The Nickel Twins happily replaced red ink for black war paint and began a search for mega-projects as far away as possible from the one stalled by Rocky Tobin-ator.

The Copper crew got smaller and leaner as their projects got bigger and better. The long-suffering Zinc team was galvanized by higher prices, and, miracle of miracles, investors even became interested in Iron Ore again!

Meanwhile, the Golden Goose tribe tried to dodge the slings and arrows hurled at them by Striped Suits, who, it was alleged, were dumping golden eggs in order to protect their paper-egg-making monopoly. As prices fell, some tribesmen fought back by producing more golden eggs, which they sold for prices lower than the cost of goose feed. “Way to go, guys,” mocked the Top-Tier Tribesmen.

As reality set in, some junior tribesmen were forced off the island by angry creditors. Others left after surrendering their remaining possessions for a golden parachute. Those who remained offered to catch fish for the Top-Tier tribesmen in return for a safe spot on the beach.

A few decided to leave for other beaches, where deposits of diamonds and platinum and palladium were rumoured to be waiting to be discovered. Unfortunately, those beaches were small, geologically complex, and staked mostly by unfriendly giants with strange accents.

“Well, that’s it for me,” one scout said as he collapsed in the sand. “I’m out of goose feed.”

“Me too,” his friend replied with a sigh.

So they opened a pizza place, struck up a friendship with Ginger and Mary-Anne, and waited for better times. One day a ship passed by, loaded with investors yelling: “Quick! Get me out of Nortel! Dump Dogfood.com!”

The Golden Goose exiles were hesitant to place their faith in a shifty paradigm but decided things couldn’t get worse, which meant they had to get better. They boarded their shop, grabbed their hammers and rejoined what was left of their tribe. A tiny shred of optimism had worked its usual magic once again.