Broken News: Elite mathematicians unable to calculate AIG bonuses after factoring for success

NEW YORK—Today a group of elite mathematicians and numerologists from some of the world’s finest learning institutions announced that they were abandoning their attempt to figure out what the bonus payout for the financial products division of AIG would have been if the company had, instead of perpetuating the collapse of the global economy, actually made money in 2008.

Initiated after the announcement of $165 million in bonuses to the division that nearly ruined AIG, the project quickly descended into chaos. At the core of the disagreement was whether humans possess the mathematical sophistication required to express just how much money the executives and traders in question would have earned had their schemes borne fruit, or at least broken even.

"I just don't think a number exists that can accurately tells us what they would have earned," explained Dr. Francis Simon, Professor Emeritus of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "If bankrupting the world and crippling every financial institution in creation warrants a nine-figure bonus, well, I think it practically impossible to discern what the production of actual profit might have entailed."

Insiders say the group fractured while debating the merits of inventing new, higher descriptive numbers. Suggestions included "kajillion" and "bazillion," as well as a proposal to describe compensation in terms of land ownership. Specifically, 1 trillion suns or 40 billion solar systems. Unfortunately, tempers then flared over whether the group would be required to invent a new number to ascribe astronomical value to the sun. It was allegedly at this point that Carnegie Mellon University Astrophysics professor Charles B. Woo referred to Simon as the "Son of a two-balled bitch."

"After a short time, we came to realize that the exercise was ultimately futile," said Simon, obviously exhausted from the mental expenditure and minor scuffle that ensued after Dr. Woo's insult. "I think it's better for society if we continue not knowing what these financial wizards would have been owed."

Berkley Cognitive Psychologist Dr. Maureen McCarren echoed this assessment. "In light of the downturn, it's best we not ponder the true value of AIG's contribution to the economy. Given the vast mental faculties required to only fail as drastically as they did, I don't know that the amount of money required to compensate such genius even exists. From a conservation-of-psychic-energy perspective, this economic collapse was really a blessing."

The financial world was quick to react to the news. “If some of the best minds in the world can’t even conceive of the payments involved for a successful year, let alone formulate a method for which we could attain the necessary goods to exchange for a competent execution of duties, then maybe we need to reassess our payment structure,” observed Danny “Skunk” Walker of Ameriglobe Financial Services.

“If we can’t figure out the logistics of acquiring Jupiter, or at least its mineral rights, for a junior exec who managed not to kick out too many necessary pillars holding up the precariously balanced world economy, maybe we need to offer more esoteric social benefits like free murders or the secret to happiness. As long as that secret isn’t ‘amassing unfathomable amounts of land and money in return for basic competence’, then I think we’re golden.”

Still, other financial gurus note that such worries about reconfiguring the bonus structure are premature and that the mathematicians had essentially been wasting their time. “You really think the bonus system for these big corporations actually conceives of achievement?” asked a bewildered Peter Gurka, animal handler for CNBC’s Billy the Money Goat program. The whole system is based around covering up failure; success doesn’t even enter into the equation.”

He explained further, “The only two working business models on Wall Street are one: to either fake success by artificially making your company so large and its tentacles so weaved into the foundation of the economy that your failure has to be subsidized by the government or, two: to fake success by intertwining your business with a series of shell companies and loans between subsidiaries before cashing out and dumping it all on your successor. For the really large payments these scientists are talking about, Wall Street would have to abandon its entire business model. Fat chance.”

Regardless, the scientists are quick to caution that unless changes are eventually made, one of these galactic bonuses is going to have to be paid out. “Then what are we going to do?” Dr. Simon was quick ask. “It’s got to happen sometime, just by pure random chance. We need to be prepared. And once our civilization regroups after the inevitable nuclear holocaust, world rape and eventual banding together under one human flag? Saints alive, I don't even want to ponder the repercussions.”