the.com/golden goose
The asset everyone wants to keep alive and nobody can stop killing.
means A source of reliable, valuable income that should be protected and nurtured rather than exploited to exhaustion.
from From Aesop's fable of the goose that laid golden eggs: its owner, impatient for more riches at once, cut the bird open to get them all — and found nothing, having destroyed the very thing that made him rich. The phrase 'kill the goose that lays the golden eggs' entered English as a warning against short-term greed, and 'golden goose' split off as shorthand for the prized asset itself.
- origin
- Aesop fable about a goose laying golden eggs
- the twist
- greedy owner kills it for all the gold at once
- modern use
- describes cash cows destroyed by short-term thinking
- irony
- also a luxury sneaker brand that costs real gold