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Great video, but now sadly out of date. As of today, Helicopter Henry has given up on buying up the unwanted equipment. The dangers to the climbers was too immediate for that, so now he’s instead dropping care packages with food and medical supplies.

Thank you for these videos! I’ve been trying to understand the crisis and now I think I’m beginning to comprehend. The three main causes that I’ve been able to pick up on are:

(1) Lack of transparency. (2) Conflict of interest of institutions rating investments. (3) Excessive borrowing.

It seems like the philosophy of the markets has been: “If you find yourself in a hole, keep digging; you might find oil.”

Another excellent video.

Steve is half right! (not about us being out of date - we shot this video before Tuesday’s news about the government’s decison to take equity stakes in the banks). The Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) still buys unwanted assets, if the banks want to sell them. To extend this metaphor, rather than dropping supplies, Henry’s Helirescue is landing, offering to buy any equipment the expeditioneers don’t want to carry, and setting up a soup kitchen to feed them, warm them up, and get them moving again.

They’ll be wanting pedicures and backrubs next.

Current - or a little dated - Nobody does a better job than Paddy taking incredibly complex issues and making them understandable. Things are moving too fast to keep the videos ‘real time’… Thanks Paddy. We need a few like you in leadership! Please keep’em coming.

Glacier travel is bad metaphor to explain this situation. Several key assumptions either mis-represented or overlooked:

• If your pack is too heavy, you transfer the excess to a sled. Denali climbers have 60 lbs on their back + 30 lbs on the sled. Beyond 90 lbs, you have porters or Sherpas to carry the load.

• EVERYTHING you take on a expedition is necessary. In your explanation, Henry swoops in to buy excess weigth (represented by CDOs) which allows the climbers to continue. Let’s assume that I put 30 lbs of excess on my sled represents CDOs and a Search and Rescue person pays me to take them off my hands. Then my expedition is over. The assumption is that the 30 lbs of CDOs was vital to a successful outcome (Lehman’s case, profit maximization).

• Every roped team on the glacier has a leader able to perform situational triage. In this example, the leader seemed to be Henry.

The challenge with metaphors is that one has to overlook certain assumptions to make the metaphor fit the story.

As a mountaineer, I considered other interpretations of the climbing metaphor (Were they un-roped climbers on the glacier? Replace glacier for rock? Teams of two vs teams of 3+?) None of these variations can describe the complexity of interconnectedness with the players involved, the lack of a leader to lead sefl-rescue efforts, nor the sheer lack of respect for the landscape (climbers respect ice or die - the financial institutions refused to respect the “law” of debt).

A tip of the hat to you Paddy - it was a good try.

Beautiful video

The only thing that worries me is that the Helicopter Pilot (government) will eventually profit by selling the extra cargo, but he will keep the helicopter owners (taxpayers) in the dark and not share any of the profits….even though it was the owners’ money he used for the rescue in the first place.

@Darrell, I think you took the metaphor just a BIT too seriously…

nicaly explained still not obsolete

Great video. Thank you!

you are the man, thanks!!!! that was a really good analogy

Nice,

I like your work!,

What?,

Give somebody the to a site about the,