The Trial of Chicken Little

Junk bonds will soon be do, lots of landmines await
These defensive lines that keep getting overrun
It takes time to entrench and build defense in depth
Needed, a little financial fire prevention and some education
We expect bilateral ties to strengthen
Knock! Knock! It just an eight-hundred pound gorilla
Pounding its chest

Talks of a "new world order" are emerging
Fallout of the current economic meltdown
Financial firms face a "new world order"
Economic catastrophic conspiracy is rampant
Allied to the solutions of predator globalism.
While the mainstream outlets continue
To parade out the same old economic experts
But thier images have been tarnished
A twelve step program for financial disaster
With major geopolitical implications

Who is there to believe other than your instinct
Turn off the sound and watch their faces its
A better method for thin-slicing
Look for their vested interests
It will say more than they do

The pace of dimunition of the US position
Shall accelerate
The generic question is, is the world falling apart?
And now that they see it melting down, they're nervous
What would JP Morgan do?
Even locked doors may not help
Triggering market collapse can be a very profitable undertaking
Regulators serving the interests of speculators

Who are the architects of economic collapse
America is the most indebted nation on earth
We are dealing with an absurd spherical relationship
The orb of self-confidence, the mirror of fate
Who is the fairest of them all

Under tighter control, debtors are not choosers but beggers
Neo-liberal economic discourse is often cynical and contemptuous
Neo-conservative dialog is in disgrace
Neo-socialist agendas are in ascendancy
Neo-postmodernism is hanging out its shingle

Our gluttonous appetite for spending
Has kept the greenback flying high
Financial meltdown escalates a global crisis
Hoard whiskey and cigarettes
Gold will just make you conspicuous
And besides weight you down
The first to go are the cows
Watch for the number of goats and chicken
To escalate - backyard feedlots poliferate

In the bunker the the sides collapsed
And the top blew away.
That there is the luckiest man on Wall Street
Swartzkoff said as he pointed at the stockborker driving away
The conspirators are trying to uunravel
The complexities of the New World Order
And authority has no veracity
Conspiracy theories are rampant
Old habits hard to break – the pointing of a finger

There simply isn't enough firepower
The generals are fighting yesterday’s war
It necessary to be nimble in assessing changing conditions
There is no playbook for responding to turmoil
There are no reserves to throw into the battle
No weapons to target financial markets
No WMDs or even remotely targeted munitions
The Swiss Army Knife is our only metaphor

It was a hard-fought battle during the early part of the day
The bulls are in fighting form
The picadors have done their job well
And the man with the cape is a butcher
A beachhead has been established
The bulls are launching their second assault.

We must once again repel any afternoon counterattacks
Are the bears in retreat, analysts sound downright cocky
Look around at the waddling ducks they’ve paraded out
Bouncing higher after the recent carnage
But you need a floor to bounce off of from,
Everybody's trying to get under the same table
At the same time and there's not enough room.
Very rarely will an analyst abandon metaphors entirely.
When they do, it's a sure sign of desperation
.
Running back for cover in the war on banks
Black operations, secret plans
Members fortify defenses against temporary capital account outflows
Attempts to fortify credit markets fail
And in the bunker he shall
Try the cyanide pills on the dog first
And reserve a jerry can of gasoline
Pass the metaphors and keep shouting

QUOTE: A race which could do nothing small is as defective as a race that can do nothing great – Henry James

Government Cheese

Don’t use the word “recession.” Instead, stick with “shrinkage"
The economic statistics are becoming decidedly less positive,
As they adjust for an over statement
How many more land mines exist out there
No one knows or ventures to guess
Will there be a Nobel Award this time

Inflation caused by fiscal policy is another problem
That few seem to be mentioning
We will be seeing much more inflation caused by fiscal policy
Created in many countries around the globe
New inflationary problems will arise before employment begins to rise
The long term rally will begin long before economic growth returns
That is our best guess

This may be an occasion for governments to rein in
Out-of-control capitalism
There are opportunities for the left to explain
How the economic system works
An excuse for pursuing a neo-socialist agenda.
This will be my number one prioity
With the administration scrapping the original centerpiece
Of it’s rescue plan
And they are still calling it a weak economy
A recession is a contraction phase of the business cycle

Inflationary economic contraction - tightening in financial conditions
Data is deciedly on the soft side
Tighter credit, declines in stock prices is creating some headwinds
To boost the economy while also containing inflation.
This is something almost impossible

Having blown fiscal policy on tax cuts ill afforded
And a war that can’t be paid for
And historically war has helped the economy
Fiscal policy is now.a ‘no-go’
And with using monetary policy alone, it is impossible
Inflation and unemplyment were not supposed
To occur at the same time
GDP = P x Q. Therefore ΔGDP = ΔP x ΔQ

Evidence of a broad global recession continues to accumulate
The economies of the entire group
Are contracting and will shrink
Projections point to a protracted downturn
Weekly jobless claims are a volatile statistic
The safest course is probably to assume
That this reflects a genuine acceleration

There were other signs of global slowing
Forecasting for reduced global oil demand
The largest economies in recession
And the strengthening dollar will likely
Hurt overseas business
Chaos, everyone for the lifeboats
The captain has been seen wearing a dress

Weaker than expected demand in all geographies and market segments
Precipitated by fall-offs in tourism and bananas
Panic when it was rumored that the price of rice
Had doubled at Wal-Mart
The Euro dives amidst evidence of Q3 economic contraction
This may not have the typical ‘V’ shape and last longer
This is a shape indicative of glaciations
The game has changed
Global warming during a new ice age
Ugh!

Lots of buyout debt is coming due
Many private equity firms face a refinancing wave
At a very uncertain time
Nearly 30 percent of big leveraged buyouts defaulted
We are most assuredly in some kind of
Worldwide production plateau at the very least
But we can look at the peak in oil production
As a harbinger of things to come
Exacerbating this scenario may be the need
To increasingly adapt to climate change
Just as the amount of available energy
Per unit of time diminishes

We will reverse our historical trend
To grow in pseudo-measures
Or learn to tweak for more positive indications
Then how shall we perceive this contraction?
What will life be like in a permanent decline
The magic of technology is losing it luster
And they promised it wouldn’t happen again
We have learned our lessons they said
Can it be endemic?
Is this long awaited avian flu?

Is the underlying value of money, energy
Isn’t that what technology means
Thus it will take more units of money
To buy the same unit of work
Individuals will not be able to afford stuff
That they previously bought

But unlike previous business cycle downturns,
This one is caused by reduction in energy for doing work.
There is no recovery phase people will have less
Because there is less to have.
What’s next?

Are we in the grip of a profound
Geopolitical contradiction
The current economic crisis will surely accelerate
And continue the erosion
Biggest monthly drop ever in futures trading

Aspirational qualities
Are not simply about convenience
Over populated neighborhood outlets
Consumers are feeling the credit crunch
Americans dove 15 billion fewer miles
No growth in oil demand in ‘09
Planning to cut 1.5 million barrels of production

Economic contraction is here
Which comes first
Value-added attributes
The pocketbook
Or Government cheese
Will we be seeing a huge paradigm shift?


QUOTE: In 1993 a study even found that people were willing to pay more for airline travel insurance covering “terrorist acts” than for death from “all possible causes”. Logically, that makes no sense, but “terrorist acts” is a vivid phrase dripping with bad feelings, while “all possible causes” is bland and empty – Daniel Gardner

Come Duck Day

Shall it be a lame duck session
Drive one’s ducks to a poor puddle
Under the watch of the lame duck president
Any chances the ducks, come what may
And is it thus immunity time
Is there no box of fluffy ducks
For unspecified crimes
Who’s the biggest duck in this puddle

This the lamest of lame-duck sessions
Pull up your blue duck trousers
And bowl for a duck
Billy Ducks is roaming about
There is a lot of battle fatigue
Members of Congress are human beings
Not just broken down politicians
Butts on you Ducks!

Its a person or thing that
Who or which can’t catch a duck asleep
Unable to roll even a couple of ducks
Especially one that was previously proficient.
But now unable to crack his duck

Change-Alley bankrupts
Waddle out lame ducks
All in a double duck fit
The bulls had a balance to pay
To the bears and only one lame duck
Waddled out of the alley
And chance the ducks
If he makes one run he has
Broken his duck's egg

Lame-duck office holders
Never as meek as little duck butts
Against the wishes of their constituents.
Hence the Lame Duck Amendment,.
A time to reflect upon duck butter
There is still ample time to duck shovel
Lame duckers doing the unspeakable
A lame duck impeachment
Damn these duck noires

Many lame duck presidents travel abroad
Duck plucker presidents can simply be
Downright nasty it is said that
The Clinton whitehouse removed
All of the ‘W’s from the computers
A lame duck’s pardons can be particullary
Scandalous – a duck shoot
Truman just got on the train
And went home
Look out for a lame duch surge

QUOTE: Perhaps this is the difference between a town and a city; a town ends. You can walk down one street or another to a place where the houses stop, duck between the second and third strand of barbed-wire fence and find yourself on the open prairie – Dale Peck