AN ODE TO Old Nick

Twas the night before doomsday
When all through the marts
Not a damn thing was stirring
Not even the shopping carts

Mortgages had been bundled by
Theft merchants without care
In hopes that someone else
Would get caught holding scared

There were almost three decades
Of merchants playing in muck
Keeping health care from children
And gasoline in the truck

w kept stem cells
All safe in their sacks
While soldiers were slain
In WMD free Iraq

Taxes were held low
For those in the fast lane
While wages for real workers
Continued to wane

Our philosophy and politics
Were good for seven years
We fought them far away
So we wouldn't fight them here

We kept America for Americans
Or at least rich Americans
The poor will always be with us
So why waste giving a hand

America is for winners
The losers only whine
Let business do what business does
And everything will be fine

But the mortgage bundles failed
The banks went down in flames
Businesses quit hiring workers
All sectors turned up lame

But the free run capitalists
Still making the deregulation call
Heard the ghost of Ronald Reagan yelling
TEAR DOWN THIS MALL