TOP DRAWER SATIRE

 

Stock in The Future
by
HL Carpenter

 

The Future, once touted as a bright, exciting investment with a great outlook, has lost its luster. In trading on the New York Exchange yesterday, the stock price of the company hit an all-time market low.

“We’re not sure when the shift took place,” says a worried company executive. “Owning The Future used to be everyone’s dream. Now it seems more like a nightmare.”

Industry analysts say rampant world wide fears of oil and gas scarcity, impending food shortages, climate change and terrorism are all contributing to pessimism about The Future. The company, an international producer of visions for tomorrow, has been hit especially hard by the repeated gloom and negativity expressed by US presidential candidates.

“The problem with The Future,” says one market watcher, “Is that it isn’t what it used to be.”

That outlook may explain why The Future’s primary competition, The Past, is doing so well. Still, many experts anticipate The Future will be better tomorrow, though they admit the prediction is based in large measure on conjecture.

“Popular perception has changed, but the fundamentals are the same,” explains one hopeful authority. “In the end, The Future will be exactly like The Past, only more expensive.”

 

Originally published May 2008.