Merry Christmas!!! Twas the Night before Bailout

Happy Christma-Kwanza-nakkuh
With apologies to Clement Clarke Moore
MoP presents:

Twas the night before Bailout;

Twas the night before Bailout, and all through the States
Folks were worried about the economy and feared for their fate.
Can we afford to buy gifts this Christmas? Do we dare?
Quite, simply put... money for presents is simply not there.

The children are content expecting only to be fed,
And perhaps a college education and a brighter future ahead.
So far, their college fund… I’ve yet had to tap
But the income to expenses…such an ever increasing gap.

When up on Wall Street there arose such a disaster,
I checked my 401k and couldn’t move things faster.
I tried to save all I could of my little nest egg of cash
But history repeats, and methinks this another crash.

So here we are staring into the abyss…
Of the next Great Depression…all from remiss.
We’ve been here before and should’ve learned our lesson.
Why we abandoned the wisdom of the past is anyone’s guessin.

So, in steps St. Paulson, that will save us from this wreck,
All we have to do now is sign over a blank check!
700 Trllion dollars no questions asked…
But you have to do it now, you have to do it quick and you have to do it fast.

So, Congress wrote the check without debate one on the floor.
And the money was allotted to the who, where and the what for,
They came from all over, big names well known,
To mismanaged financial giants, taxpayer money was thrown…

Now Suntrust! Now AIG, now JP Morgan and Chase!
Here! Citibank! Here Regions! Your debt we’ll erase!
To the CEOs and executives most funds shall fall!
But…Cash away, cash away, cash away all!!!

Now as you sit and wonder how…
Why do we buy the milk when we own the cow?
Money to banks, instead of directly to borrowers?
To the ideology of fascism these must be followers.

You will see it argued, the fault be Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac
How bankers were forced to lend under the Community Reinvestment Act.
But bankers do not engage in unprofitable propositions,
And the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cuts made for so many sweet commissions

In comes’ Ben Bernanke and his Federal Reserve…
With the promise of rate cuts and an economy preserved!!!
But supply side economics only works when…
There is a middle class and they have money to spend.

Bernanke cut the interest rates ever so low,
Lowest on record…practically zero!
So people could buy, but they still cannot afford,
All the imports brought in from U.S. trade policy accords.

So here we are again staring into the abyss,
A real substantive economic policy missed…
Here’s to hope that we move back to Eccles from Greenspan
Away from supply-side and back to demand.

When a democracy passes laws that neglects its own past,
And a policy of government that opposes middle class,
As FDR said; “Necessitous men are not [free.]”
I say; here…this New year, let failed policies be…

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

by Brian Golden 12/24/08