Where's the Pilot ?

Question

A pilot of a hot air balloon lost his orientation and lowered his flight level close to the ground, when he saw a woman down there.

He called and asked:
- "Excuse me, Lady, can you tell me where I am? I promised to a friend to meet him in an hour, and I need to know my exact position." -

The woman on the ground answers:
- "You are in a hot air balloon at a height of 10 m above the ground, 40 to 41 degrees North latitude and 73 to 74 degrees West longitude." -

The pilot:
- "You must be an engineer". -

- "You are right" says the woman, "but how did you know?" -

The pilot:
- "Well, everything you said is, technically, correct, but I have no idea about how to use your information, and, actually, I still don't know where I am. To be honest, you could not help me further, and all you did was to delay my flight." -

The woman:
- "So, you must be a CEO." -

The pilot:
- "True, but how do you know that?" -

The woman:
- "That is easy; you don't know where you are and where you are going. A big air mass has carried you to your present position. You made a promise, but you have no idea about how to keep it, and you expect the people under your level to solve your problems. As a matter of fact, you are still in the same situation as before we met, except that now, you are blaming me for your problem." -



Link: http://lemotdelasemaine.com/anerie8.html#debut

Answer 1

Hi Marianne, well technically the location is given on Answers.com as somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean..."The point is about 47 miles due south of the Fire Island National Seashore, and about 50 miles due east of Normandy Beach NJ."

However it is quite certain that the balloon is really inside the USA, and the CEO is out spending some of the $100 millions payoff he has gotten after running his company over a cliff, along with the US economy, in the 2008 Great Recession...

Comments

@ Virginia,

Well, as a matter of fact, I seem to recall that Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, both Democrats in charge of their respective Senate and House committees that oversaw banking, assured us before the housing crash that everything was just hunky-dory with banking practices, despite the obvious housing bubble caused by extending mortgage credit to people who were unlikely to be able to afford the payments. I haven't researched it recently, but I think the unrealistically easy credit policies went back to the Clinton administration, to make home ownership more "fairly distributed."

And what did the banks do? Knowing full well that many of these mortgages were going to fail (although the responsible politicians didn't, or pretended they didn't), they bundled the mortgages and sold them to unwary investors.

P.S. Both Dodd and Frank retired a short time after the debacle, both to enjoy a golden-parachute retirement, much like the CEOs.

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Yes, O'Tink...could very well be some politicians tucked in that balloon with the CEO...

Here is an oversimplified scenario of what might have been going on, with our bubble-prone economic system...would be interested in what you might think?

* After the 1929 stock market crash followed by the Great Depression, FDR tried to put through a passel of regulations and regulatory agencies, sometimes called an 'alphabet soup,' to protect against bubble-style cycles of greed, speculation, crash. 

* However, by 1972 or '74, we had stagflation; inflation concurrent with economic stagnation, which John Maynard Keynes had said was impossible...but we had it. 

* We broke our way out of that with (Reagan-initiated, Clinton-perpetuated) removal of most restraints. But by apx 30 years later., that had led to another feeding frenzy, bubble, collapse - the Great Recession of 2008 was said to be fully as deep as 1929 crash. 

* * *

This is part of the reason I am looking for an alternative form of capitalism, keeping the good stuff but somehow avoiding those bubbles that burst...leaving the little guy out in the cold. However, it may be that there IS no good system that someone cannot find a way to game it....(sigh) maybe now is indeed, again, the Best of All Possible Worlds?

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@Virginia

Lol - actually, I was basing a little correction, i.e. an approximate, on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan, i.e.

40°43′42″N 73°59′39″W - (40 - 41° and 73 - 74°)

as the given figures (latitude) would have situated the location of this dialogue "off shore", in the Atlantic Ocean.

Actually, business bosses seem to have a lot in common with politicians (you are perfectly right; there was also a version with a politician) ...

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Everyone seems to be having fun with this post of yours, Marianne! Parsing it out, here...

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@Virginia

Lol - I appreciate to see all of you enjoying this joke.

Answer 2

Sounds more like a politician than a CEO, although admittedly there are similarities.

The ultimate test to find out which is the following:

If it's a CEO, his company will go out of business.

If it's a politician, there will be an increase in taxes to cover his blundering mistakes.

Comments

@T(h)ink

Yes, there are quite a few similarities.

Answer 3

Agree with Tink! Could very well be a politician!   

Comments

Of course, big bosses have quite a lot in common with politicians.

Answer 4

It does sound like politicians! Except no money was mentioned.  

Comments

Lol - "Time is money"!