Dementia Epidemic Threatens World Economy.

The epidemic of dementia amongst leading businessmen has now spread to the German car industry it has been reported today. Seven years after a similar outbreak in the financial sector was discovered and a mere two years after the shock outbreak in the Murdoch media empire, the plague that has already turned many of the world's politicians into zombies now seems to be completely out of control. We asked a leading health expert for his analysis; "A 30 second memory has plagued politicians since time immemorial," he told our reporter, "but the spread of this debilitating condition to the business world is now threatening the whole of industry. The number of chief executives who have absolutely no idea what anyone else in their company is doing is very worrying. Many seem to have no idea what their job actually is, have absolutely no idea what they were doing as recently as yesterday and can barely recognise people they work with every day. We now suspect that the agent of infection must be dirty money which politicians and captains of industry compulsively stuff into their offshore bank accounts without washing their hands properly. This latest outbreak at Volkswagen is particularly worrying since the Germans are usually very fastidious about washing their hands after doing something particularly underhand. The extent of the damage to executive brains can be judged by Martin Winterkorn's reaction to the latest scandal affecting Volkswagen; "I am not aware of any wrongdoing on my part." Essentially he admits that he has been doing something wrong but insists that he remains completely unaware of it. This is striking similar to Rebekah Brooks' condition which prevented her from knowing what her staff were doing and to that suffered by Iain Duncan Smith who remains blissfully unaware of the distress that taking all means of support from the sick, disabled and unemployed causes. Perhaps a more striking case is that of Sepp Blatter whose almost total amnesia is truly terrifying. I must emphasise, however, that it is probably misleading to label all these instances as dementia - "wilful amnesia with malice aforethought" is perhaps a better description though the much simpler term "corruption" is probably more accurate."

Football, Corruption, The Couch Potato And Business.

Football is essentially a mindless pastime with adults playing a children's game for vast amounts of money watched by other adults with nothing better to do. Because of this, in our upside-down topsy-turvy world, it has grown into an industry worth billions. Players, most of whom find it difficult to articulate a meaningful sentence, are paid more than brain surgeons to bounce a ball from one end of a football pitch to the other. Fans will pay huge amounts of their income to watch this inane spectacle and will travel the world insulting local populations as they go while often remaining utterly ignorant of the local culture. With this amount of boneheaded, knuckle-dragging ignorance amongst football fans it is hardly surprising that corruption is a way of life to those organising it all. After sixteen years in charge with absolutely zero progress being made in stamping out graft, bribery and corruption, Sepp Blatter has yet again been re-elected as the president of FIFA. A bunch of crooks have put back in charge the man who has allowed their criminality to go unchecked. Not really so surprising given the level of corruption and racketeering in the rest of the world's business community from international banking to local market stalls selling fashion "knock-offs". Andy Burnham, in his campaign to win the leadership of the Labour party, has described businessmen as "heroes". This would be true if said businessmen were the entrepreneurs of yesteryear, men risking their own capital in pursuit of a dream of excellence. Unfortunately business today seems to consist all too often of slick confidence tricks, double-dealing and misdirection at the expense of a public too busy watching football to realise what's going on around them. The so-called "beautiful game" is neither beautiful nor a game, it is an ugly multi-billion pound business and a poster child for the corruption inherent in the neoliberal economic system.