A businessman on his deathbed called his friend and said, "Bill, I want you to promise me that when I die you will have my remains cremated." "And what," his friend asked, "do you want me to do with your ashes?"

The businessman said, "Just put them in an envelope and mail them to the Internal Revenue Service and write on the envelope, "Now you have everything."

An unscrupulous businessman was feeling very ill and went to the doctor. The doctor examined him and backed away, saying, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but you have an advanced case of highly infectious rabies. You must have had it for some time. It will almost certainly be fatal."

"Could you give me a pen and paper?" said the businessman.

"Do you want to write your will?"

"No, I want to make a list of all the people I want to bite."

An economist returns to visit his old school. He's interested in the current exam questions and asks his old professor to show some. To his surprise they are exactly the same ones to which he had answered 10 years ago! When he asks about this the professor answers: "the questions are always the same - only the answers change!"

When I asked my boss for a salary rise because I was doing the work of three men he said he couldn't increase my pay, but if I told him the names of the three men he'd fire them.

An American businessman goes to Japan on a business trip, but he hates Japanese food, so he asks the concierge at his hotel if there's any place around where he can get American food.

The concierge tells him he's in luck, there's a pizza place that just opened, and they deliver. The concierge gives the businessman the phone number, and he goes back to his room and orders a pizza.

Thirty minutes later, the delivery guy shows up to the door with the pizza.

The businessman takes the pizza, and starts sneezing uncontrollably. He asks the delivery man, "What the heck did you put on this pizza?"

The delivery man bows deeply and says, "We put on the pizza what you ordered: pepper only."

A bigshot business man had to spend a couple of days in the hospital.

He was a royal pain to the nurses because he bossed them around just like he did his employees. None of the hospital staff wanted to have anything to do with him.

The head nurse was the only one who could stand up to him. She walked into his room and announced, "I have to take your temperature."

After complaining for several minutes, he finally settled down, crossed his arms and opened his mouth.

"No, I'm sorry, the nurse stated, "but for this reading, I can't use an oral thermometer."

This started another round of complaining, but eventually he rolled over and bared his behind.

After feeling the nurse insert the thermometer, he heard her announce, "I have to get something. Now you stay JUST LIKE THAT until I get back!"

She leaves the door to his room open on her way out. He curses under his breath as he hears people walking past his door, laughing. After almost an hour, the man's doctor comes into the room.

"What's going on here?" asked the doctor.

Angrily, the man answers, "What's the matter, Doc? Haven't you ever seen someone having their temperature taken before?"

After a pause, the doctor replies, "Yes, but never with a daffodil!"

A very successful investor was ready to pass on his $100 billion fortune to his three sons. However, he had always feared that his sons would be spoiled and not have any ambition other than party all the time. After much thought he decided he would split his fortune between his sons but not evenly. He devised a competition for them where the winner would be given 75% of his fortune, the second place finisher 20% and the one who finished last would be given only 5%.

The rules were simple. Each son would be given $500,000 and they would have 3 months to invest it and they would be ranked at the end of the competition by how high their portfolio grew. They were also given $200,000 each that they could only use as portfolio expenditures. He wanted them to learn how to make money but learn how one would utilize resources and work with others effectively to achieve goals.

The first son used his $200,000 by hiring the best scholars around. $50,000 for an Economist with a PHD, $50,000 for a mathematician and $100,000 for a Business professor from Harvard.

The first son's portfolio grew to $750,000.

The second son used his $200,000 to hire some of the brightest minds on Wall street. $100,000 for 2 successful Fund managers and a $100,000 for an analyst.

The second son's portfolio grew to $1,000,000.

The youngest son began spending the $200,000 throwing weekend parties, taking friends to concerts, and going on trips.

His portfolio grew to $10,000,000!!

"Wow son how did you do that?"

"Well dad. I spent $10,000 for the land, $50 for the rocks, $100 for the gold spray paint, $10,000 for the helicopter, $10,000 for the ex-geologist, $100,000 for the shell, and the rest on parties and concerts for the brokers, analysts and writers.

Computer novices may feel like they're alone these days, but some of the following calls to IBM's help center show there are plenty of people out there who still are inching onto the information superhighway.

After a caller gave a technician her PC's serial number, he scanned a database of registered users and responded, "I see you have an Aptiva" desktop unit. Before he could say another word, the caller shrieked and said she'd be right back. When the customer returned, the technician asked if she was all right. The caller responded: "Had I realized you could see me, I never would have telephoned in my bathrobe."

A customer who had just received a laptop computer asked about the power-saving feature known as "hibernate." Would this hibernate device work in the spring and summer, the caller asked.

Another caller explained she had received a gift of software on 5.25-inch diskettes, but she had only a 3.5-inch disk drive on her computer. The technician said she had two options: Get a second disk drive, or use 3.5-inch diskettes. The customer called back later, now complaining that her disk drive was making a terrible noise. And this despite the fact that she was using a 3.5-inch diskette, she said. After a bunch of questions, the technician determined the caller had used a pair of scissors to trim the 5.25-inch diskettes to fit the 3.5-inch drive.

A caller, perplexed that his new desktop computer - the one that was supposed to do everything short of bringing on world peace - was doing nothing, cried out for help. No problem, the IBM technician said. First, open a "window" to launch a specific program. The conversation continued, and the caller asked a few moments later if it might be all right to close the window. Why, the IBM technician asked. Because, the caller responded, it was getting very chilly.

It's not easy being an economist. How would you like to go through life pretending you knew what M1 was all about?