Berkshire Hath a Way: Warren Buffett, the greatest investor of the 20th century, announces that he has figured out a way to take his Berkshire Hathaway stock with him when he shuffles off this mortal coil and that he will continue to make investment decisions from the other side. The announcement by Buffett, who was born in 1930, electrifies the market, setting off a boom in Berkshire’s stock that makes it the first New York Stock Exchange issue to have a six-digit share price.

As the 21st century ends, Berkshire’s stock-market value, continuing its 30 percent compounded annual growth rate since Buffett took control of the company in 1969, exceeds the gross domestic product of the United States. But there is a downside. Robo-Buffett, a cyberpitcher that Buffett orders up so he can continue tossing out the first pitch at the Omaha Golden Spikes game the weekend of Berkshire’s annual stockholders meeting, still can’t throw a decent curveball.

Citigroup Buys Japan: Japan’s lagging economy, combined with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act restricting the activities of U.S. financial companies, spurs Citigroup to mount a successful takeover of Japan. “Japan’s excessive savings rate combined with our customers’ excessive borrowing rate form a perfectly balanced entity,” Citi says. “Our Japanese subsidiary will produce capital and our borrowers will consume it.”

Three years after the acquisition, loan problems put Citi at the brink of collapse. But U.S. regulators orchestrate a bailout, because Citi is too big to fail, especially with Japan on its back. The Citi chairman gets a $10 billion bonus for leading the turnaround.

Airline Squeeze Play: American Airlines, the industry’s marketing leader, decides that it’s no longer feasible to continue squeezing seats closer and closer together. So it eliminates seats entirely and sets up a new class, “cattle car,” that forces fliers to remain on their feet for the entire flight. “No problem,” a company spokesman says, “American’s fliers are all stand-up guys.”

Greenspan Reigns Eternal: Congress, attempting to eliminate the periodic uncertainty caused every four years by the end of Alan Greenspan’s term as Federal Reserve Board chairman, declares him chairman for life and waives the rule restricting Fed governors to 14 years on the job. Markets celebrate the news by driving down interest rates on U.S. Treasury bonds to record lows.

Gates Vows Poverty: In a stunning reversal, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates announces, on the eve of Microsoft’s appeal of the antitrust ruling breaking up the company, that he has had an epiphany. Gates donates all his Microsoft stock to charity, takes a vow of poverty, resigns from the company’s employ and begs forgiveness of all the competitors that Microsoft has trashed. He begins his penance by promising to fix problems with Windows 2023 so that users don’t need a doctorate in computer science in order to make it work properly. Federal government drops antitrust case. Clearly a coincidence.

Tree Grows to the Sky: Disproving the adage that no tree grows to the sky, a 12-mile-high gene-spliced redwood in northern California penetrates the troposphere and reaches the stratosphere. Hundreds of business writers are trampled to death in the stampede to search for new cliches to pooh-pooh the stock-market boom, which is currently in its 92d year.

Social Security Invests in Stocks: After decades of debate, the federal government decides to invest the entire Social Security “trust fund” in stocks. “Stocks have risen for more than 90 years–what’s the risk?” a government spokesman says. Market peaks two days after the investment switch is completed, stocks fall 50 percent and show no sign of recovery. The ever-resourceful Social Security Administration begins distributing pamphlets showing retirees 75 different ways to prepare cat food.

Y3K Problem Looms: Experts predict that faulty programming means that computers won’t be able to deal with the advent of the year 3000, and the world as we know it will come to an end.

SLOAN is NEWSWEEK’s Wall Street editor. His e-mail address is sloan@panix.com.