Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Feeling Good, Doing Badly

You’ll be laid off when you’re about 50 and your services won’t ever be needed again
On the other hand they’ve pushed back your full retirement age until at least the age of 70
We’ve developed nearly magical cures for all the illnesses that will soon plague you
Unfortunately, they’ll be far beyond all your government benefits and meager savings put together

You’re grounded by the wondrous set of private dialogs you’ve shared with your personal savior
But you pack with 3000 other prairie dogs in a Wal*Mart style mega-church to worship him
She walks dogs at the Humane Society and donates to groups with cute puppy calendars
You’ll find her serving guests tender veal that can never even stand up inside their tiny pens

Under great duress they righteously accorded several species their so-called protection
Meanwhile, the seas were strip-mined of all life and filled with microscopic plastic
I reflect upon my efforts at recycling with a certain greenish sense of satisfaction
My used paper heads off to China to be used to package all the imports we don’t make here anymore

We provided temporary jobs for honest loggers harvesting the last of those valuable big trees
But now there’s no more logs to ship and tourists don’t visit to gawk at trees and spend their money
You borrowed millions and started carving a remote area into a toney second home resort
Your little friends pulled the plug on your leveraged scheme, so you just walked away

I am searching for the miraculous and straining with every fiber for cosmic understanding
I’ve got juicy soft porn sites bookmarked that I visit with a monk-like regularity
They demanded our personal responsibility regarding health care as well as pensions
On the other hand they were bailed out by crooked cronies with no strings attached at all

We could step in and lower your interest rate and we could even guarantee your loan
But with your no-down and equity re-financing you’re still way too far underwater for you to bother
Things are looking so much better for us now than earlier in this bloody financial quagmire
Yet, no one will ever be held responsible for the crimes and sins that got us there to start with

You rage against the fact that you only earn 80% of your male colleagues takings
But they’re working 10% overtime & holding the door as you leave early again, for your lame kids
At last you’re free to enjoy all the wondrous things that you’ve always dreamed of
Your eyes are bad, your back is sore, your wind is gone and you never hatched a nestegg

Smart consumers have at last stopped credit spending and some have even begun to try and save
Alas, such wise household spending attitudes cause stocks to fall and even more jobs to disappear
Honest citizens have been freed from oppressively high fuel prices once again
Just in time to fuel another surge in purchases of gas-guzzling SUVs & obese, road-hogging pickups

The car dealers, real estate agents, cruise lines, and hip restauranteurs were mired in recession
And they say consumer spending always solves our economic crises and certainly never causes them
The vacuous, self-serving geniuses of Wall Street are getting flak over giant bonuses again this year
On the other hand they’re not going to jail cause they’ve convinced us we still can’t do without them

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