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Three Billion Names Added To Forbes Poor List

THE worldwide boom in grinding poverty has led to more than three billion names being added to Forbes magazine's annual 'poor list'.

Around six billion incredibly low net worth individuals are now members of the elite club and for the first time in it's history brown people now out number pink people by just two to one.

A spokesman said: "We are seeing a fundamental shift in the make up of the list with millions of Europeans and Americans finally staking their claim to a life of untold fuck all."

But despite the surge in western poverty, the world's poorest person remains Victor Undungwe of Chad whose net worth has dropped from a bag filled with bits of old toenail to a small pebble and half a dead spider.

He said: "I made the mistake of investing half my toenail bits in RBS and the other half in Woolworths.

"My broker has advised me to put my pebble into defensive stocks such as oil and telecoms and have the spider for lunch."

Meanwhile Forbes 'rich list' of billionaires has shrunk dramatically with more than 300 individuals now forced to admit they are worth just several hundred million dollars.

Tom Booker, founder of investment fund Berkshires Thataway, said: "I lost a lot of money short-selling African toenail bits.

"I don't know how I'm going to cope without being on some list or another. I suppose I'll just drift around the Aegean in my yacht until I start to cheer up."

Meanwhile the UK government is to introduce a new scheme to help poor people buy cars they can then sell to pay for food.

One Woman's Week: Reinventing The Train

People these days have to get their priorities right and stop crying like a bunch of wallies because the pound shop 'just isn't the same' as Woollies, and the mall's pick'n'mix is 'extortionate'.

Sure, money can buy you many things: a country mansion, a massive Porsche, some Gucci sunglasses – but what can it really buy? My wage as a primary two school teacher is frankly pitiful but you don't see me complaining. As I slave, night after night, over their preposterous spelling and poorly informed arguments about euthanasia, I just remember that I am effectively shaping the future generation. You can't put a price on that; though if you could, it should probably be in the region of seventy grand. 'Charity with a red pen' is what I like to call it (red is, of course, the colour of sacrifice as well as my favourite colour).  

Paxman and I have so much in common: we both have a university education, we are both incredibly photogenic and we both just love the Victorians. You see, the Victorians just had to get on with it even when they smelled disgusting and were infested with rickets. British history is choc-full of economic strife, but did you ever see the Victorians getting swastika tattoos and listening to disgusting punk music while throwing pint glasses at each other? No, they communicated their angst by painting an attractive still-life, or even better, they went out and made their own fortune by inventing something, for example, a train. No spot of debt would have bothered them – not least because they had a Jew for a prime minister. Here's an idea – get those Jews off the telly and back into the cabinet where they belong! How different things could have been in the 70s if we'd had Ben Kingsley for PM.

But joking aside, is the recession really so bad? The Bill will only be on once a week from now on: Big Deal. Just let me ask you this: do you even know what The Bill is about? I suspect the answer is 'not really'. And in any case, the whole 'doomsday' thing is totally appeasing the fundamentalists among us, who all think that Allah is doing it. I think Gordon Brown would be well advised to put together a special think-tank led by people such as me and Paxman. We'd have this train back on the road in no time!

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