Leave it to The Onion to come up with this amusing, yet sadly accurate, story (hat tip, Gene).

Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble:

A panel of top business leaders testified before Congress about the worsening recession Monday, demanding the government provide Americans with a new irresponsible and largely illusory economic bubble in which to invest.

“What America needs right now is not more talk and long-term strategy, but a concrete way to create more imaginary wealth in the very immediate future,” said Thomas Jenkins, CFO of the Boston-area Jenkins Financial Group, a bubble-based investment firm. “We are in a crisis, and that crisis demands an unviable short-term solution.”

…According to investment experts, now that the option of making millions of dollars in a short time with imaginary profits from bad real-estate deals has disappeared, the need for another spontaneous make-believe source of wealth has never been more urgent.

“…The manner of bubble isn’t important—just as long as it creates a hugely overvalued market based on nothing more than whimsical fantasy and saddled with the potential for a long-term accrual of debts that will never be paid back, thereby unleashing a ripple effect that will take nearly a decade to correct…The U.S. economy cannot survive on sound investments alone,” [Greg] Carlisle added.

Well what do you know, if you give people incentives to do something (e.g., behave irrationally), they will do it, …in excess even.

Bottom-line: Incentives work.

There’s more of the story on The Onion site. Good fun!