Mice are set to overtake the United States and even emerging super-powers China and India as the world's largest economy by 2080, according to reports published in The Spoof! today. Experts claim that the surprisingly beneficial effects of medical testing have triggered a drive in mouse productivity and as nations search for alternatives to carbon based fuels, mice may well have found the answer.
Dr Fred Chin, an expert on Mouse economics, claims that although it has long been considered cruel to subject animals to medical testing the side effects have been more positive than was previously thought. "Basically scientists have managed to cure absolutely everything in mice. They no longer suffer from arthritis, asthma, blindness, heart disease, old age or the effects of global warming. They're essentially invulnerable and because of this they are perfectly positioned to become the dominant race of the next century."
Dr Chin claims that the rodent race are already hard at work building up stores of electricity to power their emerging society. "The mice have been peddling away at those wheel things for decades, but it's only recently that they had the idea of hooking them up to a generator. They've got the gerbils and the hamsters working for them as well now, and they tell me they've got enough power already to keep a country the size of Belgium running for the next fifty years."
A spokesman from Friends of the Earth commented "This is obviously very surprising for us. We've always been very against animal testing but as a result of it we seem to have found a non carbon-based energy source that will last forever and thus possibly saved the planet. We're very confused!"
China has been quick to cement relations with this new power base. It is believed that the Chinese government have already signed a contract to supply the mouse population with cheese for the next two decades and have readily agreed to veto any attempt by cats to join the G8. America, meanwhile, has been more resistant to opening diplomatic talks with the mice due to their presence in so-called "axis of bastards" countries, such as Iran and North Korea. However President Bush is under increasing pressure to agree to talks with mouse presidential candidate, Minnie, the wife of former president Mickey, who is currently serving as mouse secretary for foreign affairs.
Potential sticking point in talks for full mice membership of the UN include the rodent nation's antipathy towards farmers' wives and refusal to acknowledge certain domestic animals.
