Lolling on Saturday: Kabutar capitalism

A bank lent money to everyone, including pigeons. The pigeons defaulted, citing 'seed inflation'. The bank collapsed, but regulators bailed it out, insisting pigeons were 'too flighty to fail'. Economists debated whether feathers should be considered collateral. One professor concluded: 'Only if they're golden.'

Nothing Out of Something
A startup raised $200 mn to sell absolutely nothing. Their pitch: 'We monetise absence.' Customers loved it - finally, a product that didn't clutter their lives. Competitors tried to copy the model, but failed because their nothing wasn't scalable. The IPO soared, then vanished, leaving investors with... nothing. Which was the promised deliverable.


Follow the Sigh
A nation boosted GDP by counting every citizen's sigh as a taxable service. 'You sigh, we grow,' the finance minister declared. Soon, people sighed in factories, sighed in schools, sighed at weddings. The economy boomed, but happiness plummeted. Economists called it 'the sigh bubble'. When it burst, the silence was deafening - and taxable.