Dateline Normal, Mn.: " In Normal, Mn., all the kids are rated AAA by AM BEST----FICTION

Recently I was talking with an older gentleman and asked him to explain how a certain insurance company that got a massive bailout from the federal government, could at the same time be rated so highly by the rating agencies right up to....and throughout....the crisis.

He explained that that insurance company was broken up into twenty or so corporations that individually were mostly still rated at very high levels, and how this could persist was just a mystery.

Whenever I am mystified, which can be often...I simply call my old friend Herman, up in Normal, Mn., where he is a countryboylawyer, and also, and proudly, a member of the Normal, Mn. school board. Herman was a lawyer. He should know, I thought.

After I explained the situation, Herman just replied with a chuckle.

"Shucks, Wolman, (that's what he always called me.) those are just shell corporations. It's just a shell game so to speak. It takes imagination to get the concept."

Then he went on:

"Shell games are so popular up here in the North Country, that we in Normal, Mn. were determined to lead the nation. We individually rate each of the newborn kids AAA by AM BEST on the day they are born. It makes things real simple."

So. There it is. How to be AAA rated. How it is just natural in God's Country.

"Thanks Herman, " I said.