Economy & Policy

Poetry of the bailout

By Barbara Kiviat | September 24, 2008 | +

In the comments sections, WilliamBanzai7 shares with us his latest subprime-debacle-inspired poem. The creative-writing major in me thought it worth a full post.

TARP, you’ll keep in mind, stands for Troubled Asset Relief Plan–what we heretofore have referred to as “the $700 billion bailout.”

Charge of the TARP Brigade
(inspired by Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade)

Half a trillion, half a trillion,
Give or take 200 billion, onward!
All in the valley of Balance Sheet Death
Rode the seven hundred billion tax dollars.
“Forward, the TARP Brigade!
“Charge for the ABS Credit Default Swaps!” he said:
Into the valley of Balance Sheet Death
Rode the seven hundred billion tax dollars.

“Forward, the TARP Brigade!”
Was there a politician dismay’d?
Not tho’ the Congress knew
Some guy named Hank had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:
Into the valley of Balance Sheet Death
Rode the seven hundred billion tax dollars.


CDOs to right of them,
CDSs to left of them,
AIG and the GSEs in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with Wall Street shot and shell,
Boldly that load of Federal largesse rode and well,
Into the jaws of Balance Sheet Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the seven hundred billion.

Flash’d all the workout sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air,
Sabring the losses there,
Charging an army of tawdry bankers, accountants, and shysters, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the seedy subprime-smoke
Right into the red numbers they broke;
Lehman and Bear Stearns
Spared from the sabre stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the seven hundred billion.

CDOs to right of them,
CDSs to left of them,
Fat Wall Street workout advisory fees behind them,
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with derivative losses, asset backed shot and shell,
While level 3 zeros fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Balance Sheet Death
Back from the mouth of insolvency Hell,
All that was left of it?
Nothing left of seven hundred billion!

When can its glory fade?
O the wild loss charges!
All the world wondered.
Honor the huge expenditures they made,
Honor the TARP Brigade,
Noble seven hundred billion taxpayer dollars.

Barbara!

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  • williambanzai7

    Thanks Barbara.

    TO BAIL OR NOT TO BAIL
    (Adapted from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet)
    (WilliamBanzai7)

    To Bail, or not to Bail, that is the question:
    Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
    The slings and arrows of outrageous loss of fortune,
    Or to take arms against a sea of financial troubles
    And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
    No more; and by a sleep to say we end
    The heart-ache and the billion market shocks
    That investor hubris is heir to: ’tis a consummation
    Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
    To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub:
    For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
    When we have shuffled off this market coil,
    Must give us pause—there’s the respect
    That makes calamity of so long life.
    For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
    The CEO banker’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
    The pangs of write offs, the law’s delay,
    The insolence of office, and the spurns
    That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,
    When he himself might his quietus make
    With a bare quill? Who would Federal oversight bear,
    To grunt and sweat under an ordinary life,
    But that the dread of something after death,
    The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
    No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
    And makes us rather bear those ills we have
    Than fly to others that we know not of?
    Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
    And thus the familiar hue of resolution trust
    Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
    And enterprises of great pitch and moment
    With this regard their currents turn awry
    And lose the name of action.

  • http://www.pajamaverse.com Sir Limerick

    What will seven hundred billion bucks buy?
    Fast cars or gold rings in endless supply?
        Nothing at all for you, my friend,
        You’re stuck with the bill in the end
    Somebody must keep this plane in the sky!

  • http://dollarcollapse.com/articles/art-of-the-collapse/ Art of the Collapse — DollarCollapse.Com

    [...] Charge of the TARP Brigade, by WilliamBanzai7 [...]

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