EUROPE RENAISSANCE HUMOR: We often find funniness even under the most dreadful circumstances; it is known as gallows humor. The never-ending recession has produced its own brand of wit. ‘With the market turmoil being what it is what’s the best way to make a small fortune? Start off with a large one’.

Iceland’s President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson issued arrest warrants on the bankers responsible for bringing the economy to its knees. This was the basis of the joke, ‘Record levels of unemployment have been announced. Those worst affected are the construction trades and Iceland’s bankers.’

The roll call of bankers who have taken their own lives since the beginning of their Ponzi scams has reached unprecedented levels. ‘What’s the definition of optimism? An investment banker who irons five shirts on a Sunday evening.’

In Britain there’s The Big Issue magazine; it is sold by unemployed street sellers. This gave rise to the joke: ‘I talked to my bank manager yesterday.

He said he was going to focus on the big issue. He sold me one outside McDonald’s yesterday.’

I can identify with that. I received a letter from my bank manager stamped, ‘Insufficient Funds’. I wrote back, you or me?’

Investment banking isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Most of us relate to ‘what is the difference between an investment banker and a London pigeon?’

The pigeons can still make deposits on BMW cars. One businessman wryly remarked that bankruptcy was worse than divorce: ‘I have lost half my net worth and I still have my wife’.

You know the credit supply is crunching when your cash-point asks if you have any spare change and the Inland Revenue offer a discount for cash payers.

Many a true word said in jest, my favourite is the story of the builder who asked to be paid in Zimbabwean dollars rather than the U.S. dollars. We all know the feeling: Why have real estate agents stopped looking out of their windows in the morning? Because if they didn’t, they would have nothing to do in the afternoon.

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