"Twas The Night Before Christmas"

[Joanne98]

Twas the Night before Christmas
And all through the bourse-houses
All the traders were clicking,
Glued fast to their mouses,

Their bids were all tracked
By the market with care
In the hopes St. Bernanke.
Soon would be there.

Taxpayers were nestled
All snug in their beds,
While visions of early retirement
Danced in their heads.

And Roubini his ‘kerchief,
and Taleb in his cap,
Had just settled down
For a long winter’s book tour

When out in the banking sector,
There arose such a clatter,
That congress sprang from their junkets,
To see what was the matter!

Away to the VIX,
We flew like a flash,
The banks were all broke,
And demanded hard cash!

Sub-prime had all tanked
Each new wave was a blow,
The pundits were lost,
From Krugman to Kudlow!

When, who should appear
with a strange bag of solutions
But Timothy Geithner and
eight to-big-to-fail institutions!

More rapid than Washington
lobbyists they came,
He whistled, and shouted,
and called them by name;

“Now Goldman, now Citigroup,
now B.O.A. and Morgan Stanley!
On Fargo, On Chase!
On G.M. and A.I.G.!”

“To the top of the TARP, to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! To the discount window, one and all!”

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When the meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the market-top the cash-flush banks flew,
With a long list of bonuses for all of them too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on blogs
How this bail-out had stepped on innumerable laws
For no matter how much money approved by the Senate
The banks still were screwed in the derivative market.

As I turned off CSPAN and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Bernanke came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;

A bundle of T-Bills he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes, how they twinkled! His style, so dapper!
Behind him was filled a cash-stuffed helicopter!

He seemed quite unworried, his brow was unfurrowed,
He explained any amount of money could be borrowed!
Production, he explained, was a thing of the past,
Interest-payments were high, why, we’d just print more cash!

He was chubby and plum, a right jolly old banker,
And I laughed when I heard him, in spite of my anger.

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He gave no more speeches, but continued his leering,
(His lawyers advice ‘till after the next Senate hearing)

He spoke not a word, but went straight to work,
And he filled all those banks, and threw in a few perks.
And raising a finger from the mid of his fist,
He searched for tax-payers he might have just missed.

He sprang to his sleight, to his legal team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he fled from this caper,
“Don’t worry you rubes! In the end it’s just paper!”

Better luck to us all in 2010!
Cullen McGough, with thanks to Clement


http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/12/belated-twas-the-night-before-christmas-financial-services-edition.html