The Value of Chest Hair

Everyone appreciates a ridiculous story when they read one. Today, I am happy to share such a story and offer my inane thoughts and opinions on the matter. I'm sure that everyone has heard stories of the British insurance company, Lloyd's of London, insuring famous people's various body parts. Examples being; the legs of Heidi Klum or Fred Astaire, the fingers of Liberace or Keith Richards, J-Lo's backside, etc. It is my understanding that these celebrities can ensure that if something were to happen to the only thing capable of making them money, then they could manage to feed themselves into old age via the insurance policy.

So, now there's this story. Tom Jones is a singer, so you might think, he could possibly be having his vocal cords insured... his mouth, maybe his lungs. But his chest hair? Seriously? And for seven million dollars? Seven million dollars? Seven million dollars? How does chest hair add to the performance of a 67 year old singer? If say, all of Tom Jones' hair follicles were to suddenly decide to vacate the premises and abandon his torso, would he sell fewer albums, or lose attendees to his performances? While I personally have not seen Tom Jones perform, it is possible that his act requires a voluminous carpet of chest hair. Somehow, I doubt it. Maybe I'm wrong, but this seems completely absurd.

From a business standpoint, I think that the global value of chest hair has just increased dramatically. There are roughly seven billion human residents on the planet Earth. I may be going out on a limb here, but in my estimation, if you were to combine the values of all of the chest hair of all of the people in the world, you would probably come up with a figure of right around seven million dollars. As of last week, then, again by my estimation, the global net worth of all chest hair was approximately zero dollars. By calculating a percent increase in value... Oh my God... Anyone holding stock in chest hair is going to make a fortune. Dammit, I sold all my options in the body-hair index at the end of the 2007 tax season. Crap. This always happens to me, I'm always one step behind. Damn you, Tom Jones!