Dave Barry Puts Humorous Spin on Economy

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Just in time for doing your income taxes — and, by the way, planning your entire economic future — comes Dave Barry's Money Secrets.

dave b While other books offer useless advice such as how to scrupulously fill out your 1040, Dave Barry cuts through the financial mumbo jumbo: Example: "Here's a tax-saving opportunity few taxpayers take advantage of: Instead of simply writing your name, write your name plus the word DECEASED."

For college students now slogging through Samuelson in Econ 101, Barry offers an insider's guide to how the U.S. economy works. "... The gross national product is several trillion dollars, of which one-third is sent to the government in the form of taxes for the express purpose of being wasted. Another third goes directly to Bill Gates. The remaining third is divided up into wages and prices, which go up and sometimes, in the case of wages, down, in response to the law of supply and demand, which states that if there are fewer than two outs with runners on first and second base ... no, sorry, that's the infield-fly rule."
USA TODAY, January 16, 2006

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Dave Barry Puts Humorous Spin on Economy

Category: SATIRE

By: Pete Kendall, January 18, 2006

Another sign of a major mood change is the “gallows humor that prevails.”
The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast, July 2000

With its flair for collapsing when everyone is most committed and finally breaking to the upside at the point of maximum pessimism, the money world is really just a long series of hilarious pratfalls. But with participants lustily chasing the big score in a bull markets and bemoaning their losses in a bear, this reality is usally lost on investors. One exception appears to come at the end of super-big bull markets. The references below mark the outbreak of satire that appeared at the end of the Internet boom, and Dave Barry’s latest book echoes that sentiment here at the countertrend rally peak.

Additional References

July 2000, EWFF
Another sign of a major mood change is the “gallows humor that prevails” around Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Last December, The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast predicted that a “desire for comic relief” would lead to a “whole new genre of social satire.” Cartoonists are cracking up readers with similar pieces at such a steady rate that the editor of a digest of cartoons at http://cagle.slate.msn.com/news/wallst/ has established a Wall Street section to which he posts five or six additions each day. A former TV writer has just published “The Trillionaire Next Door,” a twisted look at day trading, and established a new web site called www.sexytrillionaire.com. Newsweek says, “He has developed a weird new niche: satirizing the financial pages.” Modern Humorist, a producer of web-based parodies, has put out several wicked takes on the financial world, such as “The Fortune 5” issue of “Misfortune” magazine. “Depression, defeatism, despair… ‘Bring It On!’”

March 2000, EWFF
The December issue of EWFF predicted the emergence of “a whole new genre of social satire,” which is also appearing now in different forms. Business Week’s latest bull-market book list includes How to Get Filthy, Stinking Rich and Still Have Time for Great Sex. Another humorous takeoff, The Trillionaire Next Door: The Greedy Investor’s Guide to Day Trading, is classified as a “funny little book savaging the nation’s obsession with making easy money in the market.”

December 1999, EWFF
At this point, the mania is downright funny. The following take-off is excerpted from the Onion, an Internet lampoon:

Species of Algae Announces IPO
LAKE ERIE--Seeking to capitalize on the recent IPO rage on Wall Street, Lake Erie-based blue-green algae Anabaena announced Tuesday that it will go public next week with its first-ever stock offering.

Anabaena, a photosynthesizing, nitrogen-fixing algae with 1999 revenues estimated at $0 billion, will offer 200 million shares on the NASDAQ exchange next Wednesday under the stock symbol ALG. The shares are expected to open in the $47-$49 range.

“For every company that has a successful IPO, there are 10 others that flop,” said Brian Baum, head of online consulting for Ernst & Young. “But blue-green algae has a history of steady nitrogen production, as well as a very strong relationship with fungi, an environmental power player with whom it produces many common lichens. And with the number of living organisms on the planet rising every day, the demand for Anabaena’s many products and by-products should only grow.”

Some of the real deals we have seen are almost as laughable. The desire for comic relief will expand rapidly in the weeks ahead, so this piece probably marks the start of a whole new genre of social satire.

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