An 11-year-old girl created a PowerPoint presentation to persuade her parents to buy her a pony.
The Boston Globe
“Good morning, everyone, and welcome to ‘Investing in Ponies for Parents.’ I’m Caitlin, let’s go around the room and introduce ourselves.”
“We’re your parents.”
“Terrific! A major investment such as a pony should have ‘buy-in’ from all major stakeholders in the household. Let me just see if I can get my laptop fired up–I’m not very ‘tech-savvy.’”
“You signed us up for the Disney+ without telling us.”
“It is all too easy to evade parental controls for streaming services, which is just another reason to encourage kids to play outside–and what better way to ensure that your child will get the benefit of fresh air and sunshine . . . than a pony! But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with the basics: The first question any pony investor will ask is, ‘How much is this going to cost.’”
“You got that right.”
“But here’s the thing–it’s the wrong question!”
“Not with our money it’s not.”
“Let’s not focus on up-front costs for the moment. Let’s look at long-term gains. *click* This next slide shows a horse you may be familiar with. Somebody? Anybody?”
“Is that Secretariat?”
“Amazing! We have a very knowledgeable audience this morning. Yes, that’s him. And you know how much money he won over his career? Anybody want to guess?”
“I dunno–a million?”
“Close, but not a photo finish. He won $1,316,808 in career purse earnings.”
“That doesn’t sound like that much compared to what it would cost to keep a horse.”
“I was just getting started. Investors bought shares in him for $6.08 million, and his foals earned $30 million!”
“Okay, that is a lot of money, but I’ve heard it said you should never invest in anything that eats.”
“Now, who told you that?”
“I dunno, it’s sort of Wall Street investor lore.”
“Good, good, that’s a great segue into my next slide. *click* What do we have here?”
“Looks like a bread line.”
“That’s right. Remember the Great Depression?”
“Sweetie, we’re old, but that was way before our time.”
“Fair point. But we know from history that people who were invested in the stock market in 1929 lost everything. Whereas, if they’d invested in a pony, they’d still have a pony.”
“Wouldn’t you be just as happy with a kitten?”
“Well, let me walk you through the ‘externalities’ as the economists say. If you get me a kitten, sure you’d save money in the short run, but in the long run you’ve got cat vomit and poop to clean up, your furniture would be clawed to shreds, and it would knock things off tables. With a pony, none of those things would happen!”
“Well, we’ll think about it, but you have to promise you would feed it and take care of it and muck out its stall. Say–that raises a question. Where are you going to keep it.”
“You can park your Honda Civic on the street!”