‘Finance’ Archives
Journalists back to core competencies as house prices do something
HIGH SOCIETY, Skid Row, Friday (NTN) — British house prices are set to go up, go down or possibly stay the same, according to relieved Daily Mail journalists looking for something to fill space with. A quarterly survey of 27 analysts showed house prices would probably do something that could be turned into copy, with editors dusting off [...]
Bank of England shocked to discover that just printing money doesn’t work very well
GROUND ZERO, London EC1, Sunday (NTN) — The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee is expected this week to halt its £200 billion blitz of quantitative easing, otherwise known as just printing money. "Just printing money is a task of surgical precision," said Mervyn King. "But we are enormously pleased that the economy has grown a [...]
Goldman Sachs “doing God’s work”
MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, Blind Idiot Heaven, Sunday (NNN) — Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, says that "banks are doing God's work," comparable to Hurricane Katrina, the eruption of Krakatoa and the Tunguska event of 1908. "There is a balance to all things," said Mr Blankfein. "God created Heaven, and He also created the [...]
Robert Peston: The morning tea deficit explained
YOUR DESK, Work, every day is like Monday (NNN) — It's five minutes past nine and the workplace economy is in the doldrums. Everyone is present but no work is flowing. Economics is, after all, about the flows. How to stimulate industry? While workers' in-trays remain thin, the rate of decline across the office is slowing as people face up [...]
G20: Financial crisis response “worked for us”
HECK, Pennsylvania, Friday (NNN) — Leaders of the world's biggest economies have announced that they have won the financial crisis fight. "It worked," declared the Group of 20, "and will keep us in power long enough." The April G20 meeting declared that the world economy was "facing its greatest challenge in our generation. We must do [...]
Banks utterly surprised to be paying squillions in bonuses again
THE MEMORY HOLE, London EC1, Monday (NNN) — Barclays and HSBC have passionately defended the City's culture of bonuses barely a year after the government bailout of the financial system. "I am shocked, shocked — oh, my cheque? Thank you! — that such bonuses have had to be paid again," said John Varley, chief executive of [...]
Press reports dazzling quarter for Microsoft
WINDOWSGRAD, Seattle Oblast, Thursday (NNGadget) — Microsoft has reported spectacular results for the April to June quarter, say completely independent tech journalists. "With profits allegedly down by a third," said Rob Enderle, "Microsoft is absolutely poised to make a brilliant recovery next quarter. Windows 7, man!" Revenue came in at [...]
Microsoft discontinues MS Money
BAGHDAD, Seattle, Wednesday (NNGadget) — Microsoft is discontinuing its Microsoft Money personal finance management product. In a press release touting the third annual MSN Money "Customer Service Hall of Shame and Hall of Fame," Microsoft was first place for shame, followed by XBox at number two and Windows Live Search at number [...]
UK economy to be revived through lure of the forbidden
CYBERSPICE, Brass Eye, Saturday (NNN) — Children's charities are backing a private member's bill proposed by Baroness Massey to make Internet-based retailers run age verification checks. A check on twelve sites found that thorough checks were not being done. "You can buy a case of vintage Burgundy online from France without supplying [...]
Banks fail Scientology “stress test”
REHABILITATION PROJECT FORCE, Hemet Gold Base, Friday (NNN) — Ten of America's largest 19 banks have failed the stringent economic "stress tests" based on the teachings of Dianetics. Senior investigators from the Office of the Treasury ("Big OTs") found that, considered as thetans, the banks were too weighed down with engrams, from this and [...]
