EU To Spend Money It Doesn’t Have To Prevent Damage Caused By Country That Spent Money It Didn’t Have

European finance ministers have agreed on a brilliant economic plan to save the eurozone from being dragged into the yawning fiscal vacuum created by Greece, which involves throwing 750bn euros they don’t have into the hole after it.

The world’s money casino wobbled precariously on Friday, when the EU announced plans to throw a notional 110bn euros directly at Greece, with gamblers casting nervous glances at large cracks appearing in the walls of the vast capitalist edifice.

“Today’s EU decision makes me feel slightly less frightened that the roof is about to fall in,” said investment banker Nick Stuff as he pushed another pension fund into a slot machine. “But the scaffolding has already gone up, and workmen are papering banknotes over the cracks. My confidence is returning. Come on baby - three lemons, three lemons! Give it up for daddy.”

Futures trader Rob Blind summed up the mood of the market when he told the Nev Filter: “Thanks to the EU’s finance ministers, I now have a huge reserve supply of chips to play with. OK, so they don’t actually exist, but as long as we all pretend they do we can carry on betting. That’s got to be better than closing the casino, right? Right.”

Britain fought a rearguard action over pouring billions it doesn’t have into a fund that saves the faces of eurozone members whilst leaving the British economy even further exposed. However, a shirtless Alistair Darling later explained his about-face decision to reporters by likening Britain’s relationship with the other economies of the EU to a third-class carriage tacked onto the end of an express train with a sobbing suicidal driver, hurtling through the night at frightening speed along a mountainside track towards a bridge whose central span had collapsed.

“Of course, we could always jump out of our compartment,” admitted the shivering chancellor of the exchequer, “but we’d just bounce thousands of feet down the mountainside to the same grisly death. So we might as well turn up the steam heating and savour these last few minutes of existence in some comfort.”

Meanwhile, the world’s money markets are peering into the darkness and eagerly placing bets on how many minutes will pass before the EU train reaches the bridge.