Money

Articles about business, markets and money -- just to make you feel like you have some say in great matters

US to auction off Nebraska

November 9, 2015

Nebraska to be auctioned off — Despite a public awareness campaign, most Nebraska residents are still oblivious to the fact that their beloved state is up for sale.

Faced with a mountain of debt totaling more than $18 trillion, the United States is planning to auction off a large section of the Midwest, starting with the state of Nebraska.

The Treasury Department estimates that the sale could fetch as much as a trillion dollars, while a further $250 billion could be garnered from selling the rights to the name “Nebraska,” access to the aquifers below the state, as well as sponsorship deals for the state’s many public universities.

President Obama is expressing remorse at having signed the order to sell the 37th state admitted to the Union, but he remains hopeful that in the long term, his decision will benefit everyone.

“It’s never easy to part ways with a state, particularly when it’s a fairly innocuous one,” he said. “Nebraska is known to be the popcorn capital of America, and it’s said to have a very tidy highway system. I have no doubt that a very kind, loving nation or financial institution will snatch it up.”

Republican senator John Thune has been chosen to act as auctioneer. In September, he successfully lobbied the White House to have his home state of South Dakota kept in the Union on the grounds that it’s home to Mount Rushmore.

“Getting rid of Nebraska is a good start towards a sound fiscal policy,” said Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., who chairs the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures. “Many people, including myself, admire the Cornhuskers football franchise, but truth be told, there’s nothing else in the whole state — save a giant train yard and a bunch of portly yokels sucking off the teet of government farm subsidies.”

The auction is to take place on Friday at Homestead Auction Center in Omaha, which will then itself be sold on eBay. Nebraska residents will be given the option of relocating to Iowa and keeping their U.S. citizenship, or should Chinese investment giant Lo Capital outbid all other potential buyers — which seems increasingly likely — becoming Chinese.

Kansas and Oklahoma are slated to be put on the auction block sometime early next year. A report from the Cato Institute predicts that the two states together might not even bring in $500 billion, meaning that eastern Colorado may need to be sold off as well.

Wall Street striking for $150 minimum wage

October 14, 2015

NEW YORK — Saying that everyone who works in the field of finance and banking deserves a living high wage, employees from New York’s financial district are striking this week in support of a $150 hourly minimum wage.

About 12,000 protesters dressed in suits took to the streets of lower Manhattan on Wednesday, vowing to not make any trades, open new commercial accounts, or even prepare a single risk-analysis spreadsheet until they are guaranteed fair remuneration for the long hours they put in sitting in front of computer screens.

“A lot of us have demanding families, spouses who want a second vacation home, daughters who don’t have the same designer purses as the other girls,” said Gus van der Woerd, 35, who struggles to make payments on his four-bedroom apartment overlooking Central Park. “There’s no reason why an investment banker who works full-time in a private equity firm shouldn’t be able to fly first-class to the Maldives once a year to spend a week at a five-star resort.”

“For many of these workers, the fight for a living high wage is not about getting rich,” said Saskia Deauville, a 42-year-old former portfolio manager who now runs an advocacy group that fights to improve working conditions for the city’s mistreated bankers. “It’s about fairness, about getting compensated for the billions of dollars we’re moving around the global economy, about being able to enjoy a simple cocaine-fuelled weekend of partying at the Hamptons every now and again.”

Critics of raising the minimum wage in the finance and banking sector say that even if the average first-year commodity trader only earns $45 an hour, that’s more than enough to lease an Audi A6 and have lunch at fancy bistros every day.

“We just need to let the free market dictate how much these folks are paid,” said Robert Haussmann, 67, a retired banker specializing in mergers and acquisitions who says he worked his way up from a measly salary of $39,000 a year back in 1983 to $3.5 million, plus stock options and bonuses, upon his retirement in 2012. “Fair is fair.”

American Apparel forced to auction half-naked teen models

October 5, 2015

A judge in California has ordered the clothing company American Apparel to sell off its more than 300 half-naked teenage models as part of a restructuring agreement with lenders.

The half-naked teen models, many of whom live in the company’s Los Angeles headquarters, subsist off of kale smoothies and spend their free time posting photos to Instagram and listening to music.

Their future has been uncertain ever since the company admitted earlier this year that it was facing financial problems and announced that it would be closing some stores and laying off employees.

Spokesperson Anna Rexic says that while the company had hoped to retain its half-naked teen models for future advertising campaigns, she’s certain that their new owners will treat them well and give them plenty of time to hang out in their cotton underwear and 70s-style tube socks.

“A lot of these kids have been with us since they were adolescents, and they feel like family to us,” Rexic said. “We’ve prepared individualized care manuals for each one, with important information about how much sunlight to give them, as well as how to prevent them from impregnating each other.”

“It sure has been fun skirting child obscenity laws with these half-naked teen models, but sadly, we have no other choice than to sell them,” she added.

So far, at least 50 of the half-naked teen models have been auctioned off, most of them to a Chinese tech firm that plans on using them as decoration.

Planned Parenthood orders parts recall

July 15, 2015

Public relations nightmare: Planned Parenthood factory orders parts recall — Planned Parenthood workers at a New Jersey disassembly plant.

Fearful of lawsuits in the wake of revelations that the company sold disjointed products, Planned Parenthood is issuing a nationwide recall of all parts purchased in the last ten years, admitting that they pose a serious public relations threat.

The company is contacting the owners of some 78 million internal and external parts sold as far back as 2005, advising them to stop using the items immediately and drop them off at any Planned Parenthood office for a full reimbursement. No receipt is required, according to a spokesperson.

“We want this to be as painless for everyone as possible,” said Ariella Heim, who is leading the recall efforts. “Extra staff will be on hand. Soft music will be played to ensure maximum comfort. We’re also giving out juice and cookies.”

While it’s not yet certain if any lawsuits will be filed against Planned Parenthood, the Dandy Goat’s legal expert says that the company cannot be held entirely responsible for the fiasco, as the parts were provided by millions of private suppliers.

Despite damage to the company’s reputation, its executives are confident that the majority of the public will soon forget about what is being called “Partsgate” and go back to watching cat videos.

“This is an unintended consequence of branching out into another sector too quickly,” said Rachel Wiechmann, an ob-gyn who now heads Planned Parenthood’s sprawling telesales division. “You start with providing reproductive health services, then you’re doing abortions, and before long you start saying to yourself, ‘Throwing away all these bits and pieces is such a waste.’”

“Any successful organization experiences some growing pains, and we’re no exception,” Weichmann said. “While we hope to someday get back into the used parts field, for the moment we’re going to refocus on our core activities.”

“As they say: too much, too fast,” she added. “Baby steps.”

Greek tramp runs out of German architect’s money

July 9, 2015

As crisis talks over Greece’s continued membership of the troubled Euro currency continued in Brussels this week, the reality of the financial apocalypse facing this southern European nation famous for giving the world Demis Roussos and olives was playing out in a series of individual tragedies far from the glare of the world’s media.

The Dandy Goat spoke with Athens wino Demetrios Kleptos, who was sucking the last dregs from a liter bottle of industrial-strength Mindfukos ouzo, known to young Greek partygoers and anarchists as “Tramp Ouzo” due to its affordability and foul, stagnant odor.

“This could be the last bottle I drink today,” complained Mr. Kleptos, who like the rest of his compatriots is only able to draw out 60 euros — about 65 U.S. dollars — per day, and then only if the banks are open and have cash reserves. It’s barely enough to buy several liters of ouzo and a couple of kebabs, with a little left over for Mr. Kleptos’ hobbies of playing the slots and indulging his fetish for cheap locally produced pornography featuring unfeasible acreages of bushy, black pubic hair.

But Mr. Kleptos is relatively lucky. Tramps in Greece, unlike on the rest of the planet, are heavily subsidised by the state. While many chose to live on the streets rather than in comfortable government supplied apartments, they receive generous financial support, as do students, anarchist squatters, and anyone who simply can’t be bothered to get out of bed in the morning to go and look for work.

But this generosity comes at a price. And it is being felt over 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) away in Wittlich, a small town in western Germany’s Rhineland-Palatinate region best known for its moderately successful girls handball club and its annual pig festival, a giant street hog roast which celebrates the burning of treacherous pigs that according to legend opened the city gates to invaders in the Middle Ages after being bribed with turnips.

Joachim Pist, an architect who shares a comfortable cottage on the outskirts of the town with his busty, blonde-haired wife Greta, their sons Helmut and Adolf, and 17 vicious Rottweiler attack dogs, has financial troubles of his own. His credit card was declined earlier this week when he attempted to pay for a relaxing weekend break in the Black Forest town of Baden Baden, famed for its healing mineral waters and for having played host to vast numbers of fugitive Nazis after the end of the Second World War. “I contacted ze bank to see vat se problem vas,” Mr. Pist told the Dandy Goat’s central Germany correspondent. “Und zey said zat my account vas uberdrawn! Und I said das ist keine possible! I make uber 100,000 euros a year, und my frau makes very gut money as a serving maiden in a beer hall.”

It turns out that Mr. Pist’s finances had been heading downhill for some time, but not through any fault of his own. It’s now been revealed that Greek citizens have had direct access to the bank accounts of hardworking, conscientious Germans and other EU citizens for over two years. The scheme was dreamt up by EU finance ministers as what they thought would be a more economical way to transfer northern Europe’s wealth to its indigent southern member states — the PIGS of Portugal, Italy, Spain and Greece.

Barry Shrott, a spokesman for the European Central Bank, told the Dandy Goat that “it seemed to make sense at the time.” He explained: “Our economists came up with the idea that, rather than go through all the hassle of having governments collect taxes from northern European citizens, then having to pay that money to the EU so that they could then redistribute it to the PIGS, who would then redistribute the cash in welfare payments to their sloth-like populaces, it made more sense to cut out the middlemen and just give the Greeks and the others direct access to the bank accounts of people in countries like Germany.”

“It made sense in theory,” said Mr. Shrott, “but the problem was that the Greeks, as we say in England, started taking the piss. Having hairdressers retire at 50 because they’re considered to work in a hazardous profession is one thing, but effectively paying bums and deadbeats to sit around doing nothing except drink ouzo is going a bit far even by European standards.”

Now the gravy train seems to be coming off the rails. The bank accounts of Germans like Joachim Pist and thousands of others have been, or are close to being, completely emptied. It’s believed that the last of Mr. Pist’s money was drawn out by a 51-year-old part-time art student and street performer in Athens who used the money to buy several liters of Mindfukos and a box of highly volatile artisanal handmade fireworks which he intended to use to celebrate the overwhelming ‘No’ vote by the Greeks against the EU’s last-ditch austerity plan.

Demetrios Kleptos was also at the street party, and is still suffering from a raging headache. Happily for him, he also has access to the bank account of another German, one Gunther Mott, a zookeeper from Bremen, but he’s not sure how long that money will last. “I can’t believe I have to wait for tomorrow to get some money to buy more ouzo,” he said. “What about my human rights?”

Meanwhile back in Wittlich, Joachim Pist is also desperate. “Mein kinder need new Lederhosen fur schkool in Zeptember, und mein BMW needs new brake pads,” he told the Dandy Goat. While Greek civil servants, students and hobos sleep off their referendum victory hangover, lying half naked in the sun in streets awash with vomit and the stench of stale ouzo, Mr. Pist is wondering where he will get the money for his next stein of Schturmmlaager. And how he’s going to tell his wife that she will have to become a sex worker.