From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Thu Jun 27 2002 - 21:04:44 MDT
REMAINING U.S. CEOs MAKE A BREAK FOR IT--
Band of Roving Chief Executives Spotted Miles from Mexican Border San
Antonio, Texas(Rooters)
Unwilling to wait for their eventual indictments, the 10,000 remaining
CEOs of public U.S. companies made a break for it yesterday, heading for
the Mexican border, plundering towns and villages along the way, and
writing the entire rampage off as a marketing expense. "They came into
my home, made me pay for my own TV, then double-booked the revenues,"
said Rachel Sanchez of Las Cruces, just north of El Paso. "Right in
front of my daughters."
Calling themselves the CEOnistas, the chief executives were first
spotted last night along the Rio Grande River near Quemado, where they
bought each of the town's 320 residents by borrowing against pension
fund gains. By late this morning, the CEOnistas had arbitrarily inflated
Quemado's population to 960, and declared a 200 percent profit for the
fiscal second quarter. This morning, the outlaws bought the city of
Waco, transferred its underperforming areas to a private partnership,
and sent a bill to California for $4.5 billion.
Law enforcement officials and disgruntled shareholders riding posse were
noticeably frustrated. "First of all, they're very hard to find because
they always stand behind their numbers, and the numbers keep shifting,"
said posse spokesman Dean Levitt. "And every time we yell 'Stop in the
name of the shareholders!', they refer us to investor relations. I've
been on the phone all damn morning."
"YOU'LL NEVER AUDIT ME ALIVE!"
The pursuers said they have had some success, however, by preying on a
common executive weakness. "Last night we caught about 24 of them by
disguising one of our female officers as a CNBC anchor," said U.S.
Border Patrol spokesperson Janet Lewis. "It was like moths to a flame."
Also, teams of agents have been using high-powered listening devices to
scan the plains for telltale sounds of the CEOnistas. "Most of the time
we just hear leaves rustling or cattle flicking their tails," said
Lewis, "but occasionally we'll pick up someone saying, 'I was totally
out of the loop on that.'"
Among former and current CEOs apprehended with this method were Computer
Associates' Sanjay Kumar, Adelphia's John Rigas, Enron's Ken Lay, Joseph
Nacchio of Qwest, Joseph Berardino of Arthur Andersen, and every Global
Crossing CEO since 1997. ImClone Systems' Sam Waksal and Dennis
Kozlowski of Tyco were not allowed to join the CEOnistas as they have
already been indicted.
So far, about 50 chief executives have been captured, including Martha
Stewart, who was detained south of El Paso where she had cut through a
barbed-wire fence at the Zaragosa border crossing off Highway 375. "She
would have gotten away, but she was stopping motorists to ask for
marzipan and food coloring so she could make edible snowman place
settings, using the cut pieces of wire for the arms," said Border Patrol
officer Jennette Cushing. "We put her in cell No. 7, because the morning
sun really adds texture to the stucco walls."
While some stragglers are believed to have successfully crossed into
Mexico, Cushing said the bulk of the CEOnistas have holed themselves up
at the Alamo. "No, not the fort, the car rental place at the airport,"
she said. "They're rotating all the tires on the minivans and accounting
for each change as a sale in the current quarter."
Joe Quinn
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