Tuesday, October 21, 2008

G&S and the economy (honest!)

Visitors to AQA may notice that The Gilbert & Sullivan Archive is listed as one of my favorites.

One of my correspondents (an old Army bud) forwarded the following:
(To the tune of "Here's a Howdy-Do", from the Mikado)
Here’s a how-de-do!
If I bail out you,
All the other firms will follow,
Till the federal bank is hollow.
If I bail out you!
If I bail out you!

Was the Quant jock smart?
Pulled mortgages apart,
Rearranged them willy-nilly,
Turning B’s to A’s, that’s silly.
Why’d they ever start?
Were they really smart?

What did Shiller say,
Long before today?
“We are in a housing bubble,
Subprime credit swaps are trouble,”
That’s what Shiller said.
He could look ahead.

Here’s the guy from Bear
In his underwear,
Nothing left inside his closet,
Nothing earned for a deposit,
Do we really care?
Here’s the guy from Bear.

Where’s the S.E.C.?
Setting markets free!
Let all the banks self regulate,
The profit motives really great,
So said the S.E.C.,
Who led the S.E.C.?

Morgan may be next!
Now we’re all perplexed.
No more money in the budget,
What the hell, we’ll have to fudge it.
Let our children pay,
That’s what we all say!

Here’s a how-de-do!
If I bail out you,
Our taxpayers will be hurtin’,
That we know for good and certain.
Here’s a how-de-do!
Here’s a how-de-do!
Sometime now long ago I opined that an appropriate Gilbert & Sullivan or Tom Lehrer quotation could be found to match just about any situation.

I was right!
... well... okay - this isn't really G&S, but I'll count plausible parodies!
Stop the madness!!!

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