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Goldman Sachs 'Did Not Have Magic Beans'

MERCHANT bank Goldman Sachs has not been using magic beans to generate its multi-billion dollar profits, it was claimed last night.

For years investors believed that fund managers at the Wall Street institution have been climbing a massive plant in the back garden and stealing supernatural geese from a cumbersome giant.

But now regulators in New York are investigating claims that the bank is not able to harness the power of magic and has instead been using the traditional investment methods of manipulation and bullshit.

Roy Hobbs, deputy chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said: "When an investment company makes billions and billions and billions of dollars regardless of the prevailing market conditions, it is only natural to assume that it has something to do with beans and geese.

"But last August I was walking past the Goldman Sachs headquarters and was struck by the absence of an enormous green trunk disappearing into the clouds.

"After thinking about it really hard for a few months we then raided their offices and recovered a grand total of one goose which was not magical in any way and seems to have been installed in the men's room to provide a twisted form of executive relief."

Millionaire property developer Charlie Reeves, who has invested his fortune with Goldman Sachs since the mid-1980s, said: "The money just kept coming and coming so I naturally assumed the company was really owned by the Count of Monte Cristo.

"But after a few years I noticed they were not overwhelmed by an obsessive desire for revenge and so like everyone else I believed it was probably just a run-of-the-mill, bean-based enterprise staffed by particularly talented goose thieves."

But retail tycoon, Nathan Muir, added: "I never believed for a second that it was beans. I always though it was a magical cooking pot that never ran out and so they were able to guarantee an unending revenue stream by selling bowls of porridge to hungry villagers without having to contend with the unpredictability of fluctuating oat prices.

"Or that it was something to do with unicorns."

 

 

M&S Suit Nearly As Popular As Churchill

A GREY, single-breasted Marks and Spencer suit with four-button cuffs and flat-fronted trousers is almost as popular as Sir Winston Churchill, it emerged last night.

According to a Sunday Times poll, 72% want the suit to be in charge in the event of another war against Hitler.

And a further 83% said that only the suit could really think about starting to begin to hopefully tackle the obstacles that are in the way of possibly making some sort of eventual difference to an as yet undefined quantity of stuff.

The public reaction to the matching jacket and trousers has now thrown everything in Britain wide open with experts stressing that nothing may ever be the same again, especially for those who have become accustomed to having a job and some money.

Joanna Kramer, from Finsbury Park, said: "The thing I really like about it is the way it came across as being pure new wool with an understated lining made from a mixture of polyester and viscose.

"And the little bag of spare buttons made me feel that I was finally being treated like a grown-up."

Bill McKay, from Hatfield, added: "I really liked the way someone had put a shirt and tie on the same hangar as the suit and then tied the tie so you could see how it would actually look with that particular shirt and tie. It was really fresh and exciting."

But Martin Bishop, professor of political buttons at Reading University, said: "Don't get me wrong, it's a perfectly nice suit and I'm sure that if it had been around during the second world war then someone may have looked reasonably smart in it.

"But I don't think it would have been much use in rallying the nation against the forces of fascism, mainly because it's just a suit."

Meanwhile during an interview on BBC1's Andrew Marr Reads the Papers, prime minister Gordon Brown refused to rule out working with the suit and insisted that a new electoral system was now the only way to stop politicians from stealing your money.

 

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