Wishful thinking is trading at an all time high on the UK stock market, leading some commentators to suggest that we might be living in a bubble. While wishful thinking has always been in abundant supply, demand for it in the UK has traditionally remained low. In recent years, however, demand has dramatically increased, fuelled by Brexit, Boris Johnson and radio towers, prompting a sharp spike in speculative fantasy prices.
Financial institutions point to other causes also, such as social media and unregulated self-delusion-investing. Investment Bank, Goldman Pipe & Slippers, said recently in a press release that the marketing of wishful thinking under the brand names ‘Delusion’, ‘Fantasy’ and ‘Sophistry’ has created widespread addiction to unrealistic optimism across the UK. Addicts can often be spotted online rambling on about how Britain will trade steak and kidney pies with China, how climate change will bring back the royal family, or how y-fronts offer better protection than a mask.
Attitudes have not been helped by a recent spate of false advertisements online and in major cities, such as a widely viewed advert on London Transport claiming that the NHS could win an unlimited supply of jam if only everyone clapped hard enough and kicked out the French.
A magical thinking crash may be imminent. “All it takes,” said a spokesperson from Goldman Pipe & Slippers, “is for one person to wake up and see the truth. If they sell their fantasy stake it could trigger others to do the same, causing mass panic followed by the return of widespread mustn’t grumbling on a scale not seen since the seventies. And all of this will happen, by the way, without toilet paper."
