Economic Computer Viruses

Just in case you were thinking about downloading anything from an economist, here's a short list of the computer viruses your PC might contract, in alphabetical order....

Central Bank Virus: Slows down your computer's performance when it thinks its working too fast and floods your computer with excess RAM when it slows to a crawl. Sends vague messages of "irrational exuberance" or "conundrums" to describe your computer's status.

Econometrician Virus: 60 percent of the PCs infected with this virus will lose 38 percent of their data some 14 percent of the time (plus or minus a 3.5 percent margin of error.)

Interest Group Virus: Divides your hard disk into hundreds of little units, each of which does practically nothing, but all of which claim to be the most important part of the computer.

Government Virus: Nothing works on your system, but all your diagnostic software says everything is just fine.

Multinational Corporation Virus: Deletes all monetary files, but keeps smiling and sending messages about how the economy is going to get better.

Political Think-Tank Virus: Doesn't do anything, but you can't get rid of it until the next election.

Soviet Virus: Crashes your computer, but denies it ever happened. (Related to the Microsoft Virus).