Try Some Political-Economic Poetry

You often get interesting stuff in the comments section. This poem by reader "imsmall" is my choice for the most entertaining comment so far in 2007. To me, it's rather amusing and topical. Read it and see if it accurately reflects heady times in America fueled by Chinese lending. Or, as Paul Krugman once wryly noted, nowadays "Americans make a living selling each other houses, paid for with money borrowed from the Chinese." Now that the housing bubble has burst, well, you end up with...

FAST WEALTH AND BITTER BREAD

The oil prices start to soar
While Real Estate has hit the floor,
The Stock Market is jittery,
The future prospects bitterly
Surveyed on Wall Street and Main Street,
As all alike know they must eat
Their bitter bread, their bitter bread,
Who let fast wealth get to their head.

So China props the dollar up,
But will not fill your beggar´s cup
When she determines not to prop you--
So will not common sense then stop you
From your spendthrift indulgences?
No priest nor prophet comes to bless
Your bitter bread, your bitter bread,
Who let fast wealth go to your head.

It was a fond, elusive dream,
Illusory as it would seem,
But, though superb ambitions went
Before, it was all fraudulent,
This hope, sans rolling up one´s sleeves
To profit--them delusion leaves
But bitter bread, such bitter bread,
Who let fast wealth fill all their head.