You've got to laugh

Markus did not believe in anything. He did not believe in God, in evolution or even in himself.

Markus was a trader in Explosive a company based in the City of London the financial centre of the known world (apart, of course from all those other financial centres outside of the City of London).

Markus was a very good trader he had managed to convince people he could make them money at short notice and had indeed done so. At the same time he had managed to ruin a respectable number of businesses in the process by dumping shares in their company and buying them back at a lower rate.

Markus was now having a little bit of a problem. He had brought an enormous number of shares in Explosive, in fact he had brought all the shares, apart from those that he held, and had short sold them making a handsome profit for himself and his backers. Unfortunately, he had managed to lower the price of shares to the point where the entire company was just about worth the price of a large plaice and chips from Hans Fish Bar.

Nobody at Explosive liked to be compared to plaice and chips and potential investors were also not keen on plaice and chips (or rather would wish to actually get plaice and chips for the price of plaice and chips) and future sources of revenue began to dry up making the company even less attractive as NOBODY, but NOBODY wants to invest in dried up plaice and chips.

In order to hide his mistake Markus used his profits to buy shares in the Office of Fair Trading a company that speculated on whether companies were behaving themselves or not. An excellent company where you could buy options on whether your company was behaving itself or not. Markus managed to buy enough shares to then dump them via his amazing short-selling technique and make an even more incredible profit which he used to buy more shares in Explosive at a more inflated price making it more attractive than plaice and chips.

Unfortunately, the Office of Fair Trading became worth less than a regular portion of chips and a pickled egg. Lucretius a high-flying trader at the Office of Fair Trading did not like chips and pickled eggs and decided to do something about it. Namely, by buying shares in another large company and short-selling to gain enough profits to buy shares in the Office of Fair Trading at inflated prices.

It was due to the selfless efforts of Markus and Lucretius and others and their dislike of certain combinations of fish and chips that the great depression of 2000s happened. It was only during 2011 due to the superhuman efforts of a handful of fish bars and their incredible batter that confidence in all combinations of fish and chips was restored and the economy picked up and the wheels of high finance began to grind smoothly as before.