Abraham and the investment banker

An investment banker was walking through the desert and came upon a camp of nomads. While approaching the camp he saw a man among a flock of sheep. The investment banker greeted the man, who introduced himself as Abraham. The investment banker complimented Abraham on the quality of his flock and asked how long it took to acquire such a herd.

Abraham replied, “Only a little while.”

The investment banker then asked why didn’t he get a larger flock. Abraham said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The investment banker then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

Abraham replied: “I sleep late, play with my children, nap with my wife, Sarah, stroll among the camp visiting, where I sip wine and tell stories. I have a full and busy life.”

The investment banker scoffed: “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time making your flock larger and with the proceeds, buy some land rather than drifting about. And with the proceeds from the land you could buy a larger ranch and larger flocks and branch out it into other livestock. Eventually, you would have a large enterprise with thousands of acres. You would be selling thousands of livestock each year. Instead of selling your inventory to individuals, you would sell directly to the processor, then eventually open your own meat-processing facility. You would need to leave this desert and move to a larger city, of course, and eventually New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

Abraham asked, “But how long will this all take?”

To which the investment banker replied, “About 15 to 20 years.”

“But what then?”

The investment banker laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and you would make millions.”

“Millions. Then what?”

The investment banker said, “Then you would retire. Move to the quiet and beautiful desert where you can sleep late, play with your children, nap with your wife, Sarah, stroll among the camp visiting, where you can sip wine and tell stories.”

In the beginning

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Quickly, God was faced with a citation from the regulatory board. God was granted a temporary permit for the project, but was stymied with the cease-and-desist order for the earthly part.

Then God said, “Let there be light!” Immediately, the regulatory board demanded to know how the light would be made. Would there be strip mining? What about thermal pollution?

God explained that the light would come from a large ball of fire. God was granted provisional permission to make light, assuming that no smoke would result from the ball of fire, that a building permit would be obtained, that there would be conservation of energy, and that the light would be out half the time. God agreed and offered to call the light “day” and the darkness “night.” The officials replied that they were not interested in semantics.

God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation, with plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit.” The advisory board agreed, so long as only native seed was used.

And everything was OK — until God said the project would be completed in six days. The officials said it would take at least 200 days to review the applications and environmental impact statement. After that would be a public hearing. Then it would be 10-12 months before …

At this point, God created hell.

These jokes have been e-mailed to us by friends and associates who, for the most part, have downloaded them. We therefore cannot verify the authorship.