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Saturday 12 November 2011

rapping up the crisis

Who's at fault, who's at fault?
Too little money in the vault.
It's all a game,
but who's to blame?
Stack 'em high and sell 'em short.

Money goes round and round the till
'till some fat hammer-head makes a kill.
That's the perception,
that's the deception -
now where's the guy whose got the prescription?

Come with me, let's hit the street,
hit the street and feel the beat,
feel the beat and get the heat.
The whole damned world's in hock to who?
I'm in debt and so are you.

Let us go then; quick, quick, slow,
the dance of life sets flesh aglow.
Who's the villain, we would know.
I tell you friend, it gives no joy
to hear it's neither man nor boy!

Don't blame the suit in the High Street branch.
He's not the one who took the chance,
he didn't lead us in this dance.
The one you want is miles away.
You're fast asleep when he makes his play.

It's not the fellow who shook your hand,
arranged your loan for a hundred grand;
he's not the one who did you down,
he didn't make the nation frown.
We're talking shades in a shanty town,

a shanty town of high-rise bliss,
luxury pads and avarice.
Someone there has caused this piss -
not the fellow we all have seen seen,
but a shadowy ghost in front of a screen.

Now, down to him, we're over taxed,
and still the government's too relaxed,
too relaxed while a nation rages
at city pets, outrageous wages
and stacks of venomous mortgages.

They sell their debts as they think they must,
knowing what's sold will hit the dust,
then lay out bets in funny money
that the mortgage buyers will all go bust -
but the cash is ours, so how's that funny?

Who's missed out, who's missed out?
They're the ones that my song's about:
the ten per cent in the social pit,
the five and a half who don't quite fit,
the one per cent who just might quit.

The richest rich then make their pitch,
the poorest poor are shown the door,
the gulf between them widens more.
The richest rise like birds of prey,
high on the thermals, hogging the day.

My voices tell me democracy
(and only it) is the way for man -
no place here for a backup plan!
The government's mired in complacency,
and all we've got is to bear the can.

Three great Cs once made a start
at changing the world - or, better, the heart.
Each in its turn would prove a flop,
offering nothing but regular sop -
Guess them from the names I'll drop.

I'll mention Keynes and Marx and Christ -
all of them masters of the heist -
but none of the Cs has failed as guide;
they kind of simply aint been tried,
their basic tenets all denied.

So where shall we look to find the vision?
Where unearth a sense of mission?
What can now excite us all,
unite us all
in the next demanding call?

17 comments:

Cait O'Connor said...

What I want to know is where has all the money gone?

Fantastic poem Dave, thank you.

jabblog said...

Where did all our industries go? Who asset-stripped the companies? The pursuit of money started a long time ago.

kaykuala said...

Fantastic observation Dave! Very current and very informed. The malady afflicting the US that led to the subprime crisis and financial ruins and bailouts are subtly relevant. Now deja vu the Eurozone crisis looming ahead. An excellent verse and very educational!

Hank

Dave King said...

Cait
Me too: how is it that pretty much every country is in deep debt. To whom do they owe it all? (The few countries that have a healthy balance don't seem to be the ones that are owed money.)

jabblog
I don't know how old I would have been - quite small I think - when I heard that we were selling the Argentinian Railways. I told my parents it was the beginning of the end. They laughed, of course...

kaykuala
It's like a fractal: whatever focal length of lens you use, you see the same picture.

Tabor said...

We were always looking the other way to lazy to really inspect the times and too happy to get angry and demand change. NOw we sow what we reaped. Like this poem. Good job.

haricot said...

Here in Japan a baby who is just born has already amount of debt.
It wont sustainable...
I look back a song with nostalgia, " Where have the flowers gone?", now we have to ask ourselves, "Where has the money gone...?"

Brian Miller said...

nice...in the face and relevant...i dont understand at all honestly and it just keeps getting worse...a county in AL filed bankruptcy this week and that shook me a bit thinking and then italy and...where does it end and where did the money go...crazy...someone has it...

Mary said...

Excellent, Dave. Good questions. It seems there is always a next crisis. We are all on the brink. And the stock market goes up and down. Who has the money? CHINA?

Rose said...

Absolutely brilliantly done verse by verse!!! and word for word :D

ds said...

How it vanished in the vapor--or rather, smokescreen. And globally, bad debt backing more bad debt, creating still more bad debt. Mind boggling.

You've caught it brilliantly. Thank you.

Lolamouse said...

Hey Dave, do you rap? I can just hear this one with a good bass beat in the background! Yo, yo, it's DJ Dave, the King,here to lay some beats on you!

Windsmoke. said...

Down here in OZ we rode out the GFC pretty well compared to other countries. A lot of money just vanished during the GFC and like other people i'd like to know where it all went :-).

sunny said...

beautiful, Mr Dave.

Dave King said...

Tabor
All very true, alas. Thanks.

haricot
That is just awful, to think of children being born into debt. It sounds Dickensian. Songs have this knack of popping up again with renewed relevancy, don't they?

Brian
Yes, you no sooner begin to reconcile yourself to one setback when another strikes.

Mary
Maybe, but try the Arab states, I'm thinking.

Rose
Thanks. Too kind! Very appreciative, though.

ds
It is. It's the HOW, of course, that's mind-boggling. And gets more so the more you look into it.

Dave King said...

Lolamouse
I don't rap, no, but recently I have been getting very interested in it. There was no consious influence, but there may have been some borrowing all the same.

Windsmoke
I think the really trying times are just ahead.

sunny
Thanks a lot.

JeannetteLS said...

Had to do this one aloud, Dave. Sad to ponder that it was an enormous world war that broke the last worldwide depression, was it not?

I have no idea how we all get out of this mess. A war won't do it, thank GOD. Will someone be brave enough in the US to point out that no pure system works? And point out to the masses in a way that sticks, that we are NOT a democracy per se... and that we do NOT practice pure capitalism and that the less regulation we've had, the WORSE things have gotten?

Dave, can someone Smack us upside the head with the Tao, so that we can stop with the WANTING every little thing, stop with the bragging when we HAVE every little thing, stop with the hypocritical blaming of anyone ELSE who moves? Doses of Lao Tzu, Confucius, Gandhi, The Big "C," the Buddha, and others along the way?

Sorry. I long for some brilliant minds to gather in one spot, with no cameras nearby and the imperative to work together to come up with an idea for ALL of us to try together.

Together. There's a concept...

Good song. And borrowing from rap/hip hop... well isn't that what poets, writers, painters do? We absorb the influences of what moves us, learn to use new tools. Cool.

Dave King said...

Jeanette
I think you have diagnosed the malady very well and prescribed the remedy. But how do we get the patient to take it?