Sleighing Bad

The Santa Corporation's total output,
Runs at half a billion presents every year,
So each non-naughty girl and boy,
Can earn themselves at least one toy,
But the figures don't add up, to me that's clear.

Apparently it's done on zero income,
So you have to ask how that's attainable,
Although the Elves may work for free,
It's raw materials, you see?
Their business model's unsustainable.

So I think....

Santa's got a meth lab at the North Pole,
Sends his product out diguised as candy canes,
D.E.A. can't cause him friction,
Coz they got no jurisdiction,
On the Christmas miracle that this sustains.

You just can't beat their distribution network,
Two thousand drops per second it appears,
It's all delivered on one night,
While all the kids are sleeping tight,
They've been at it for least a hundred years.

So why not score some "Jingle Meth" this season?
It will only cost you twenty bucks per gram,
Leave the cash by Santa's sherry,
And your Christmas will be merry,
Unless I'm wrong - and I don't think I am.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,

"♫Jingle Meth, ♫Jingle Meth,
Blows your cares away,
Get some in on Christmas Eve,
Stay ripped till Boxing Day.♪"

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[img]https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/28/2019/02/watch-out-for-santas-sleigh-flying-over-your-house-this-christmas-eve_136534-39f1353.jpg[/img]

[notes]
There are more than 525 million children under the age of 14 in the world who
celebrate Christmas on December 25th. We can start by assuming that number of
units to distribute on the basis of 100% niceness (0% naughtiness) and a single
gift to each. Naturally, any significant increase in naughtiness will bring the
figure down although this may be compensated to some degree by nicer children
receiving more than one.

Prices for gifts vary greatly by geography and so does the spend per child of course
(eg around £500 in the UK and $900 in the US according to some recent estimates).
Here, we are concerned with single, hand-made, items produced in what is clearly the
world's largest cottage industry. Based on pictorial and anecdotal evidence we are
looking at goods like small stuffed toys and wooden trains so a unit cost of $5USD
is not unreasonable (again, assuming free labor) implying a $2.5 Billion funding
requirement. And we are yet to consider items like admin, sleigh maintenance, uniform wear
and tear (climbing chimneys ain't easy) and Reindeer feed.

We can estimate a distribution window beginning at dusk on December 24th in the earliest
timezone (Kiribati at GMT+14). This is around 6:30pm local time. The end will therefore
be dawn on the 25th on the Howland and Baker Islands (GMT-12 )and here we are looking at
sun up around 5:30am local time.

Converting to GMT (for simplicity) we have an effective start point of 4:30am on the 24th
and an end point of 5:30pm on the 25th - so we actually have a total of 37 hours. Too
many people only allow 24 neglecting both the fact that the world is round and Santa's
well documented nocturnal mode of operation.

If we take the recent figure of 2.39 kids per family within the target demographic, we
can estimate a total of around 220 million drops over the period equating to just under
6 million per hour or around 1,600 per second. (Amazon ships about 20 orders per second.)

Therefore, you only need to sell an average of $12 worth of Meth at each drop which at
$20 per gram sounds very acheivable. This would imply 0.6 grams per drop making for a
production requirement of around 132 metric tons. Worldwide production is estimated at
around 500 metric tons - so it's a chunk of change, but not impossible.

Anyway - as we all know, the shortfall is actually made up from Christmas Magic. This
is just the view that an accountant would probably take and is one of the reasons that
nobody likes them. Happy Holidays :)

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