Another poetic gem from TMV’s favorite poet, Michael Silverstein, aka Wall Street Poet:
The latest lemming run in Washington is a race to give out upwards of $145 billion to Americans in hopes of fending off a recession. It’s a rather amazing idea when you think about it. Aside from such obvious drawbacks as swelling the deficit and adding to inflation and trashing the dollar, does a government printing money overtime and handing it out to everyone with instructions to spend it anyway they like really strike you as sound fiscal policy? Or does it seem more like a desperate spasm of hapless governors and their incompetent advisors dispensing a kind of hospice economics‹jollying up the rubes during an election year with a strong dose of monetary joy juice before the inevitable economic decline takes its inescapable, devastating toll?
Uncle Sam’s Money Tree
(with apologies to Joyce Kilmer)
Who thought that we would ever see
Free money falling from a tree;
A tree that is a panic quest
To meet a daunting market test;
A won’drous tree by Congress built
To stop the economic wilt;
A tree whose present massive size
With each new day will likely rise;
A tree grown huge to bridge a chasm
A classic fear-based Beltway spasm;
Fools like me must toil and stint
But Uncle Sam need only print.
Copyright 2008 Michael Silverstein
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.