[Newspoetry] Funny, I couldn't tell

[Michael Feltes]

The fourth story on the CBS Evening News last night
We're officially in a recession
In fact, say the nameless and faceless "leading economists"
we've been in a recession since last March

Funny
I couldn't tell

When you're looking up towards the top
everything seems to be coming down at you, all the time

In one of those little twists (making God, if God's there, seem more like a
Loki than an Allah)
One of the other stories dealt with the credit card companies
And how their interest rates have not fallen in lockstep with Alan
Greenspan's machinations
It's a terrible thing, the reporter proclaims, in this time of national
crisis
Some company whose name I don't remember's profits have gone up 33% in the
last quarter
And I want to scream at the TV
THEY'RE PLAYING THE GAME, YOU FOOL, AND DOING VERY WELL!
The leaders of the free world proclaim the wonders of the free market in
bringing us freedom and prosperity
But this is capitalism at work, my friends
You win when you make the most profit, and you make the most profit by
squeezing the consumer/worker in new and exciting ways

So perhaps the top 1% is facing a recession
Me, I've been making ends meet by cutting out the middle for a while now

-- 
--

Michael Feltes
mfeltes at gmx.net

The question is asked - can we afford it [Labour's socialistic 
reforms]?  Supposing the answer is 'No,' what does that mean?  It 
really means that the sum total of the goods produced and the 
services rendered by the people of this country is not sufficient to 
provide for all our people at all times, in sickness, in health, in 
youth and in age, [a] very modest standard of life... I cannot 
believe that our national productivity is so slow, that our 
willingness to work is so feeble or that we can submit to the world 
that the masses of our people must be condemned to penury.

- Clement Attlee, 1946

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