What's Da Buzz?

‘Fox in the hen house’ is a phrase that has caught my attention as it is being used quite frequently lately. It also is a challenge to understand, as many phrases here, depends on your understanding of small details of history in the USA and the cultural meanings of the phrases. Long story short, you have to be from the USA to understand the phrase.

Adding to the challenge of this phrase is a couple of details that cannot be avoided if you are from the Philippines. We don’t have foxes in the Philippines. The only exposure we get to them would be in literature from other countries. So that really doesn’t help at all. As for the “hen house”, we know that by a different name or a chicken coup. But that doesn’t fully grasp the definition implied either.

What is a fox? If you search on Google, you’ll get Fox News, Fox Movies, Fox Home Entertainment, Megan Fox from Transformers fame, Firefox which is the Internet browser I use, and way down on the list of 257,000,000 hits the actual animal or the real fox. A fox is the smallest member of the wild dogs and is well known to be cunning and sneaky. When you aren’t the big dog, you need to do what you can.

The hen house is based on the American farmer who, like a Pinoy farmer, keeps the hens separated from the roosters so you can have unfertilized eggs for breakfast or recipes. The American farmer long had issues with the red fox as the fox would find its way into snatching a chicken as an easy meal. So the fences went up around the hen house to both keep the hens in and the roosters and the foxes out. Obviously as any farmer anywhere could easily figure out, you don’t allow the fox into the hen house or chicken coup as you won’t have any chickens left. If you didn’t guard the hen house, that would be foolish. Allowing the fox to go in on purpose would just be stupid.

Hence the phrase of letting the “fox in the hen house” means that you are purposefully doing something very stupid and very destructive to your best interests. It still holds that meaning today but sometimes another phrase comes in. Stupid is as stupid does. If people do not look out for themselves and stay on guard or if they get lazy, people willing to do whatever they want or are told to do will make stupid decisions in the place of those they represent.

In the current events, the economic issues are at the forefront. When we look back to the Great Depression of 1929, it is found the problem was made far worse by the USA federal government. Another phrase comes in here. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

So now we have the US government looking at taking ownership in banks. If I’m an investor in the financial markets, I’d be terrified. The US government ruins anything it butts into. But they forced the issue by threatening horrible things such as a total meltdown of the stock market and imposing martial law. This is sounding a lot like what the Marcos government did until the people rose up and kicked them out of the Philippines.

This isn’t just in the USA but also in the UK.

So you have a problem created by the federal government butting into the housing market and financial markets to be solved by letting the federal government get more control of both? That sounds like letting the fox into the hen house.

Thank you,

Anah