Now that normal spying services between Russia and the US have at last been restored, we don’t want the practice getting out of hand. This sort of thing is, after all, adding nothing to the economy – and toxic spies could prove to be very bad for long-term espionage growth.

I suspect what’s required is regulation. As senior CIA officer Todd Ayo told The Slog last night, “The problem with Espionage Defunct Swaps (EDSs) is that you’ve little or no idea what the person was spying on when caught. He could’ve been like, you know, just a two-bit voyeur or whatever”. And Kremlin liaison Secretary Ivan Itchikoff agreed, adding “How we know good Russian was spy at all? Maybe just tooking picachures of stealth bomber for fun of it. We don’t want him back – he maybe just add to unemployment problem.”

“It all depends on how it’s packaged” said Boyd Kleinbank, a specialist on the fast-growing Spy Exchange Exchange, “You know, like we can call a spy-ring AAb, but how do we know we ain’t gonna get low grade bag-carriers back? What we need is standards, cos I sure as shit ain’t got any”.

As Italian Deputy SI7 Security boss Delia Oronodelia wrote on her Facebook page last week, “We have maybe lot of fun to have spy college sponsored by UN, dissa way everyone know what is what and no hidden deficits, I mean no funny business. Everyone know what what.”

Either way, analysts are bullish about the sector, claiming that new entrants to the market such as China, India, Pakistan and Turkey are all bringing fresh ideas to the table.

“We have been pioneering the idea of a commodity-spy derivatives sector” said double-agent Ahmed O’Singh, “this could provide a more level playing field, especially for people like me who are playing both ways at once”.

The American military, however, wants such ideas strangled at birth….

“Hell, but espionage is a hoot!” bellowed four-star US GIC anti-Taliban supremo Don Betrayus in an interview with Village Voice yesterday, “Goddamn your pinko eye-shadow college boy, but when you find out some liddle fuck you been sellin’ nukes to is just a two-faced no good sidewinder workin’ fer ev’warn, hangin’ ’em up by their d’gen’rt nuts is just the best fern you kin have with yer clothes on”.

General Betrayus plans to start up a Metallurgy & Insurgency Complex Unsecured Top-Security (MICUT) Fund after his tour of duty in Afghanistan, an idea that intrigues Hedge Fund manager and MI6 Agent Controller (Middle East) Sir Philby Forthmann. His War & Peace Partnership has been attracting a great deal of interest in emerging nations such as Libya and North Korea.

“The trick is to provide genuine choice in the spy-and-counter-terrorism space,” he told us last week, “And also, to cheat, not pay any tax, and take all your bonuses in Shi’ite futures”.

The Betrayus MICUT product would fit well into Forthmann’s portfolio, which he describes as “hedging classically between peace-loving flotillas, embassy second-secretaries, geology options and Iranian espionage beards”.

But growth overall is being powered by the regeneration of the national security agency sector, and on this, we must give expert Boyd Kleinbank of advisors Coldwar Sapps the final word.

“There’s no question that espionage has growth potential beyond almost anything I’ve packaged up previously” he said, “You have new entrants, more agents working for two or more brands, the enormous expansion of the satellite surveillance exchange, and of course the penetration by spies of mainstream commerce, politics, the police, health services and local government snooping. You know, I could work up a package of completely dysfunctional agents across four continents and, with proper marketing, sell the whole kit and caboodle to one of the Saudi royal families. Then have plastic surgery and buy my own island off Nova Scotia”.

Like I said, I suspect what we need is regulation – but I need to know more: anyone know where I can buy some good spies….