It is of course snake oil time. The alchemists and the gullible used to network together to make gold from base metals, but nowadays, with the plummeting price of the yellow stuff, the scam is hardly worth the cost in costumes and cauldrons.
And with the internet who needs a cauldron? A modem will get you access to millions of innocent souls who will believe anything.
Get this: presidential candidate Bill Bradley goes public with the ‘true story’ of the ball player who has sat in the bleachers for his entire career until his last game when he comes out and excels, because his blind father, now deceased, can at last ‘see’ him from heaven. The story is, of course, too mawkishly good to be true, but there is something about the internet that induces instant gullibility. Otherwise sane people will stop using deodorants during a heat wave because they get an e-mail message that warns that they cause cancer.
The modern alchemist brews up an internet IPO to make his fortune. I freely offer the following suggestions for you to make yours. We can guarantee that at present none of these companies have any discernible revenues or profits whatsoever, so they are assured of stupendous rises when they go public.
Pizza.com
Discerning customers have been able to order takeout pizza on the net for years. Pizza.com is on the verge of a breakthrough that offers delivery of fresh-baked pizza by modem. Company chairman Tom Subtle admits that there are a few wrinkles to be worked out – like stopping the tomato sauce staining the printer on its way through, but he is confident that the technology will soon cope with the problem. This is a breakthrough for the real net-nerd who dislikes leaving the screen, even long enough to answer the door. Analysts expect a surge in on-screen trading as customers remain at their keyboards.
Bulb.com
For investors interested in growth, Bulb.com offers tulips on line. Presently a glitch in the system means that it is only offering prototype black tulips, but William Orange, the Dutch CEO, promises an endless succession of better and better blooms, all guaranteed to rise in value as they blossom. Dividends will be paid in valuable bulbs – but Mr Orange regrets that SEC regulations only allow him to accept cash for shares.
Ponzi.com
At last, a real internet bank! Ponzi.com operates on modern economic principles which hold that over-assiduous attention to fundamentals can be bad for the health of a CEO’s options. Ponzi.com allows investors to bank their profits from day-trading at interest rates that would make even the Dow’s gains seem modest. CFO Luigi ‘The Bull’ Ponzi, reports that all the analysts who have warrants have tipped this as a definite hot buy – and he is about to conduct a series of one-on-ones with the others. He expresses deep confidence about the outcome of his own distinctive brand of investor relations.
T-shirt.com
This promising start up offers clingy T-shirts with Braille slogans on the chest. It is linked to white-stick.com, which sells white sticks and dark classes over the net so that you can read the Braille slogans on other people’s chests without getting your face slapped. The internet connection may seem a trifle stretched – but so are the T-shirts. Chartists expect a big growth curve when launched.
Analyst.com
Here’s a much-needed service in today’s busy market. Analyst.com offers online research reports tailored to your start-up. Like Henry Ford said, ‘History is bunk,’ and far too many analysts waste their time looking at track records and junk like that. Analyst.com offers forward-looking research, concentrating on the rosy future of your company. Its analysts write what you want to see with none of the effort of one-on-ones or answering phone calls. By a quirk of the programming, failure to maintain payments leads to a default ‘sell’ recommendation, but Analyst.com itself is always guaranteed to have a fervent buy recommendation.
Tort.com
This is your chance to buy into the expanding world of consumer liability litigation. Through the internet, Tort.com will solicit plaintiffs for various lawsuits. High on the list is Tort.com’s case against Johnson & Johnson. A retained body of scientific experts has established that every adorable little child that was dusted with baby power eventually turned into a raging-angst ridden adolescent, often sprouting unsightly body hair in the areas most dusted. Preliminary studies indicate that most of them eventually grow old and die. Tort.com argues that the statistical relationship is so clear that any jury will make major multi-billion awards of which Tort.com investors stand to gain at least one-third in contingency fees.
Com.com
The ultimate internet launch. This is a meta-site using such advanced technology that no-one can currently access it. Taking currently sound business principles a step further, this not only has no profits or revenues, it has no tangible existence whatsoever – except of course the Cayman Islands office of CFO Hans Anderson. Anderson has a stellar track record in business with his well-known apparel company Imperial Tailors Inc, the company which took invisible repairs to new heights, so this one will grow and grow.
The Speculator
