BACKTRACKING
Santa in the Global
Economy
by Terry Hogan
It has been a tough year
of transition for Santa. He had to
"go with the flow". It
was hard on him, hard on the elves, and especially hard on the reindeer. But Santa had to compete; to keep down
the overhead; to make ends meet.
With demand being high, and the aging and ever-more expensive elves, he
had no choice.
Santa first brought in
the elves and broke the news to them.
He was going to be unable to continue to use their services. But, as they were his true and loyal
long-term employees, he was offering an early retirement program, with medical
insurance. They could, and in
fact, must, vacate the company housing and move to warmer climates. The elves, seeing the writing in the
snow (some said it was in yellow), agreed to early retirement and signed the
contract not to sue Santa for age discrimination and not to say disparaging
statements publicly about Santa, the workshop, or in all other such matters
relating to the working conditions and the treatment of "little
people" of the North Pole.
The elves packed up and
moved to Florida. They bought
Lincoln town cars with booster seats and terrorized the tourists by taking
right turns from the center lane and left turns from the right lane. After all, there wasn't that much
traffic at the North Pole where they refined their driving habits.
But it wasn't long
before they began to receive letters from their retirement trust that raised
monthly medical contributions and reduced coverage of both medical and drug
plans. Before long, the Lincolns
were being replaced with used Metros.
They soon took part-time jobs, ironically, as Santa's elves at the shopping
malls. It was almost more than
they could stand.
Next Santa met with the
reindeer. As they were not covered
by a union and PETA appeared not to care for any northerly animals beyond baby
seals, Santa was able to terminate his relationship with the deer in a very
cost-effective manner. Soon Santa
opened up his Internet homepage: santasvenison.com. Santa offered home delivery of frozen venison steak for Christmas
dinner. It was shipped by jet for
overnight delivery. After all, the
sleigh was now nothing more than a museum piece. The venison sold so well, that he was forced to import
illegal aliens to hunt wild reindeer to meet the demand. Quality wasn't an issue as the FDA
never bothered to check imported meat. As the venison was quick frozen by Mother Nature, it
minimized overhead. Santa paid the immigrants less than minimum wage; charged
them rent for the use of the former elf-housing; and even sold them ammunition
at a significant markup.
But Santa still had to
meet the demands for goods on Christmas morning. Few global companies did their entire business in one day,
even though it was actually two days, given the International Date Line. Boy, he liked the International Date
Line.
So, Santa hired a good
international contract law firm and started placing orders for Christmas gifts
from China. By buying in great
bulk, he drove the prices down, and had the Chinese ship directly to chimneys
by means of old Russian Migs that China could buy for a few cents on the
dollar. Santa also contracted out
the manufacture of electronics and copyrighted movies, music, and printed material
to countries in Asia that were not particularly concerned about such
things. Santa adopted the policy
of "don't ask, don't tell".
He was able to get DVDs at only 27 cents apiece of all recently released
movies, although sometimes there were typos in the titles and misspellings in
the small print, such as the names of the starring actors.
Santa wasn't concerned
about those ugly rumors of lead paint used by the Chinese in some of the
children's toys. He took action
immediately. He had the Chinese add
after-production labels to the toys, stating they were lead-free. The cost of the labels was
minimal. And after all, actual
testing for lead in Chinese laboratories would be of questionable value anyway,
he rationalized.
With this sudden dramatic
decrease in cost, Santa found himself awash with available cash. He named himself President, CEO,
Chairman of the Board, and CFO.
After consulting with himself, he unanimously awarded himself a three
billion dollar bonus and use of a custom-designed corporate jet. On each side of the fuselage, it bore
the copyrighted logo "Santa's Toy".
Santa also awarded
himself an ice-breaker yacht, equipped with a heliport. On the stern of this snow-white yacht,
in red candy-cane paint (of course), appeared the name "Santa's Toy Too".
Despite all the money
and the luxury, Santa was sad. He
missed the companionship of the elves, who now only wrote to complain about
reduced retirement benefits, and the reindeer that were no longer around to
complain about anything.
But Santa knew what to
do. He married a trophy bride. She
was none other than Snow White.
She too had been lonely after selling off the seven dwarfs into
involuntary servitude. They were last seen removing asbestos off of old
steam-powered yachts that had become popular with the newly rich.
When Santa was
confronted from time-to-time by media concerning his harsh treatment of his
former loyal elves and reindeer, he would point out that it was not his
fault. It was the unavoidable
consequence of the globalization of the marketplace. There would, by necessity, be winners and losers in the
short-term, as the marketplace readjusted. But he assured the media, that in the long-term, all would
be better served by the more economical marketplace.
With that, he and Snow
White would board "Santa's Toy Too" and a computerized "Ho, Ho,
Ho!" would blare out on the Bose "knock off" speakers discretely
placed in the reindeer heads mounted along the top deck of the yacht. The deer head on the bow had an oddly
bright red nose, powered by long lasting (and cheap) red light emitting
diodes.
If you hear a low flying
jet on Christmas Eve, do not fear. It will not be Santa in ÒSantaÕs ToyÓ. Santa will likely be
in the South Pacific on his private island, with Snow White. Instead, the noise
will more likely be a direct flight from China: the lowest bid pilot, flying the lowest priced Mig,
following a Google map.
A Merry Christmas
to all and to all a good night.