Forbes Release Top 400 Greedy Swine List

“I Could Buy You All” Plutocrat Tells Press Conference

Forbes magazine has released its annual Top 400 Rich List in the midst of a global economic meltdown today, and a surprise entry at 387 was Edna Ebbsfleet, a retired dinner lady from Knutsford. “Eeeh, I’ve never been on any list, me” said Ebbsfleet, adding “I’m 87, you know.” Ebbsfleet’s appearance on the list was due to the £356.27 she has saved in her Post Office account.

Economic expert Ting Fanshaw explained “Mrs Ebbsfleet’s fortune has been built on a sound fiscal model of placing £5 in her savings every pension day. She’s shrewdly avoided the whole sub-prime market and it’s clearly paid dividends.” Mrs Ebbsfleet’s joy at appearing in the Forbes list was short-lived, however, as newspaper columnists quickly condemned her for not sharing her wealth with those more in need.

“It’s disgusting that a grasping old crone like that can sit on her nest-egg while our boys in Iraq can’t even afford straight bullets” said unhinged journo Richard Littlejohn. “Gordon Brown promised a fairer society when he wasn’t elected to number 10, but people like Mrs Ebbsfleet can still sit back and watch the interest on their wealth grow by pennies every year. Oh, and foreigners and poofs are disgusting, in case I hadn’t mentioned it.”

Despite Ebbsfleet’s appearance, the top end of the Forbes list was still dominated by multibillionaires, with Bill Gates featuring at number one with an estimated fortune of $57 billion. Gates recently asked Microsoft advisors “What is this recession thing they keep talking about on the news? Is it a type of cheese? Can you run Windows on it? Can I buy one?”

The number three spot was taken by Hamilton Croesus III, whose personal fortune is an estimated $47B billion. The Croesus family fortune was started in 1848 with “Old Pa’s Slave Emporium”, based in Mississippi. The shop sold items such as the “Old Stripey” whip for the slave trade. They became famous for their slogan “Emancipate Yourself From Troublesome Negras”.

Today, the Croesus business portfolio has diversified into less controversial areas such as the arms industry, South American logging and representing Premier League footballers. At the Forbes press conference, Hamilton Croesus told reporters “Who the hell do you people think you’re looking at? I could have you shot, you know.” When asked his opinion about the current global recession, he replied “We’re all feeling the pinch, my boy. Why, only last week my Lear jet was clean out of ’57 Montrachet.”

Lehman Redundancies ‘Funny As Fuck’

“WoooHahahaaaaaaa!!!!” Says Expert

The sudden redundancies of 5,000 traders, fund managers and financiers at Lehman Brothers Bank has been dubbed “The single most hilarious thing I’ve seen on the news in years” by economist Connaught Ebbsfleet.

Ebbsfleet, a professor at Knutsford University, states that while the bank’s collapse could have far-reaching implications for the world economy, it may also replace Del Boy falling through that trap door as Britain’s favourite comedy clip. “Some of them were actually crying as they left the office with their pot plants under their arms. Classic, absolutely classic.”

Viewing footage of bewildered city workers, whose company BMWs were taken off them, standing in a confused manner at bus stops trying to figure out how public transport actually works, Ebbsfleet commented “The only pity is that Lehman Brothers didn’t get sufficient warning that the sackings were going to take place. Not to implement some kind of structured rationalisation or anything like that. I just reckon they could have made a bit of quick money selling tickets for the exit interviews.”

Ebbsfleet estimates that at £10 a ticket, Lehman Brothers could have recouped £1.5M by allowing the public to sit and watch each smug, greedy, suit full of fuck-all being given the boot. “Imagine it” said Ebbsfleet “Sitting there with a box of popcorn and a sloppy grin plastered over your face as yet another blank-eyed public school monstrosity is told that his second home in the Dordogne is right out of the frigging window. They’d have to Scotchguard the carpets against fountains of hilarity-induced piss.”

The Isle Of Dogs Jobcentre has prepared itself by ensuring their coffee machine can dispense skinny mocha lattes and there are plans to add a sushi bar. Given the sudden influx onto the job market of city workers, Ebbsfleet gave some suggestions as to how they may be gainfully employed. “I think they should continue in their commitment to the companies they gambled away other people’s money on. Maybe they could go diamond mining in Liberia? Nike need more sweatshop drones and given the high mortality rate of the work, Brazilian tree-fellers are always in demand. They pumped billions into these companies, so maybe they should go out there and die of exhaustion and/or malaria if they thought they were such great organisations.”

Recession Will “Weed Out The Arseholes” Says Darling

Five Years Of Economic Misery ‘Cleansing’ Says Chancellor

Chancellor Alistair Darling has defended the UK’s nosedive into a financial dungheap by saying it will “Rid this fine country of the many, many people that hold us back from greatness.”

Launching his new financial initiative, entitled “Less Moaning Bastards For A Better Britain”, Darling stated “Our economy has blossomed under a Labour government, leading to the best standard of living this country has ever seen. An Xbox in every bedroom and an iPod in every pocket, to paraphrase Herbert Hoover.”

“However, economic models throughout the ages have followed the Hegelian model of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Or to put it another way, we’ve had it sweet for a while, so now we’re up shit street without an A-Z.”

Listing the key areas in which the economy has crashed like a drunken, texting lorry driver into a bus queue, Darling outlined how this will improve the country as a whole:

Property Market: “The general trend has been for a steady rise in property values across the UK. While this has led to increased financial security for many families, it has also led to endless, tedious bastard conversations about how much the nominal value on a chosen heap of masonry has increased over twelve months. Jesus, I’d rather talk about goat farming.”

“And then there’s estate agents. Fucking, fucking, fucking, fuckfucks. A slump in the housing market will realign the public’s perception of what a house is actually for – it’s somewhere to fall into after the pubs have shut.”

Home Fuel Prices: “Many may say that energy suppliers seem to have plucked a figure out of the air, multiplied it by seven, added their daughter’s age then whacked it on to the top of your gas bill. They may well be right, as I haven’t bothered to check. If you think I’m going to cross your average Russian oil trillionaire, you must think I have ‘twat’ sewn into my underpants.”

“But the average age of the UK’s population currently stands at 78. Skyrocketing gas bills combined with a really cold snap round about February will ease the nation’s hospital, pension and cat food burden immeasurably.”

Petrol Prices: “As mentioned above, I really don’t want to wake up in a ditch somewhere with my knees broken and my head on fire, so whatever they want to charge for petrol is fine by me, as long as they leave my bollocks unchewed.”

“But if a litre of petrol eventually costs more than a bottle of 30-year-old single malt whiskey, it will mean that unbearable turds zooming around in their Range Rovers will disappear overnight. And it will piss that Clarkson feller off no end, which can’t be a bad thing.”

Food Bills: “Most of you are too fucking fat anyway. Simple as.”

Darling’s economic strategy has been hailed by financial experts, with one saying “Politics has been dubbed ‘the art of the possible’ but Darling has shown it’s really the art of being a pragmatic, heartless prick.”

US Stock Market Crash Continues To Make No Fucking Difference

“Price Of Cornflakes Completely Unaffected” Says Economist

Following the recent collapse of Bear Stearns Bank in the US and the consequent stock market slump, leading economist Terry Ebbsfleet confirmed that “My weekly shopping at Tesco still came to about thirty quid. And that was even after I’d bought a twelve-pack of Stella, which normally bumps it up a bit.”

Ebbsfleet explained the chain of events in the US economy meltdown “Some organisation you’ve never heard of still has all the same stuff it used to have, but now that stuff’s worth a lot less for reasons nobody really understands. So the government had to give them a shitload of money. The company didn’t buy any new stuff with it or anything, but they needed that money so the stuff they already own is worth what it used to be. I think that’s right, anyway.”

Ebbsfleet went on to explain the effect this had on the wider economy “Lots of other people who buy parts of completely unconnected companies suddenly decided that this meant those companies were now worth less too. Even though, yes I know, they still had all the same stuff – it’s not like all their office furniture suddenly fell to bits or they lost a building or something. So they told all their mates that the bits of company they owned could now be bought for even cheaper. They weren’t necessarily going to buy those bits of company, mind, but if they were they’d expect to pay less for it. I tend to get a little lost at this point but I’m pretty sure that’s how it works.”

Asked how this would affect people in the UK, Ebbsfleet replied “Not in the frigging slightest. Seriously. Fags & booze still cost too much, you can still get tins of beans in Aldi for about nine pence. It’s all exactly the same. When I heard the news I expected the supermarket to look like 5pm on Christmas Eve, but no. There’s still all the same amount of stuff in the world and it all costs pretty much the same amount to buy. Although Tesco have got some pretty decent two-for-one offers on lager at the moment.”

Describing any positive benefits that could be expected from the US slump, Ebbsfleet said “Well quite a few rich, sneering, cocky twats might end up penniless and blow their brains out, so there’s always that. But ultimately you’re still going to have to go to work, keep up your mortgage and pay over the odds for petrol. Same old, same old.”

Britain To Be Sold At Auction

Great Britain ‘To Be Repossessed’


Following the Northern Rock fiasco, rising mortgage rates and spiralling amounts of people defaulting on their credit cards, a consortium of foreign banks have called in the bailiffs on the whole of the United Kingdom.

“We have tried to be patient” explained Dr Hans Ebbsfleet, Chief Executive of TransInternationalGlobalCorp Bank. “Time and again we have contacted Britain and asked if they could make even a token payment toward the 1.2 trillion pounds they owe us. But they kept hanging up on us or promising to pay £100 into their local branch, only for the money to never materialise.”

It is understood that the consortium met in a darkened mahogany room in Geneva early this week to decide what was to be done about Britain’s mountainous credit card bill. Suggestions ranged from asking Britain if it had any wealthy relative countries who could help make payments, to asking Britain to detail its weekly incoming and outgoing money to see if any savings could be made.

However, such an approach was apparently made in early 2006, with Britain telling the consortium that it was starting a new job in a couple of weeks’ time and would be back on its feet shortly.

“We had no choice but to get the courts involved.” said Ebbsfleet “Britain never turned up on the hearing date so the judge granted in our favour.” A team of 500,000 bailiffs are due to arrive in Britain on January 24th to seize goods to the value of the debt. It is understood that the Crown Jewels will be amongst the items taken to repay what is owed.

“All I would ask is that Britain does not pretend to be out when the bailiffs arrive” said Ebbsfleet. “It’s only delaying the inevitable. If we have to spend the next six months repossessing every iPod, flat screen TV and Wii in Britain to get our money back, then that’s what we’ll do.”

Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling was defiant in the face of this news, stating “We haven’t got the money, so I don’t know what they expect us to do. And all that stuff in the living room doesn’t belong to us anyway. It’s Ireland’s, so they can’t take it. If they carry on like this we’ll just file for bankruptcy and they can ruddy well tickle for their money then.”