The Christmas season, with all of its comings and goings, is fraught with risks. This is especially the case if you have a lot of parties, which carry with them counterparty risk. As a service to my Christian friends and neighbors, I have developed a series of products, instruments if you will, that take these risks and transfer them to the financial sector where they can be handled by experts who never, ever make mistakes. Please note that these products have not been approved by federal or state regulatory agencies for Hanukkah or Kwanzaa use. This diary does not constitute an offering to sell. More after the jump, which does not constitute a promise of more after the jump.
For those unfamiliar with the concept of the Christmas Default Swap (CDS), a brief primer. It's a financial instrument, known as a derivative because it was created by people without a genuine capacity for original thought, that hedges against the possibility of something happening. Since things happen literally all the time, the CDS has market has grown over the past ten years to approximately 3.4 sextillion US dollars (68,500 Canadian dollars), which is the equivalent of all of the stars in our quadrant of the universe being used to heat a can of Hungry Man soup. Despite the growth of the CDS, which (let me repeat) is entirely harmless to our economy and has nothing to do with any bad things (recall that the CDS protects you from bad things, and therefore can't possibly cause them), it has thus far not been applied to the Christmas season because of the extremely conservative, risk-averse nature of financial-sector executives. I have stepped into this void, because I can't bear to see a need unfulfilled: I can sense the slightest bit of human suffering.
My firm currently offers CDS contracts that will hedge your risk against the following eventualities (figures in parenthesis are maximum contract values, rigorously enforced in order to ensure the integrity of the contract):
9-year-old daughter declaring that she is a vegan at family pork roast dinner ($70 trillion)
Unavailability of Wii console for teenage son, even though you looked everywhere and even called a guy whose neighbor's son works at Best Buy ($215 trillion)
Tree leans left, even though it looked fine at first ($30 trillion)
Discussion of Barack Obama's birth certificate at the holiday table ($50 trillion)
Sudden return of Jesus Christ and rapturing of the faithful, including relatives for whom you already purchased gifts ($90 trillion)
Failure of at least one guest to pronounce it "the best Christmas ever!" ($25 trillion)
Best of all, a 45-year old male non-smoker can purchase any of these derivatives for only pennies a day! We are pleased to offer a CDS that hedges against the possibility that you are some other age or gender, or that you smoke. In keeping with the spirit of Christianity, the CDS doesn't mean that you are perfect, only that you are forgiven. All inquiries will be answered in the strictest confidence, via our secure online comments section below. And remember, securitized risk makes a great stocking stuffer!