Gas wouldn't matter if I'd had a mule,
I'd have my forty acres, and I'd rule;
and cash, had I stashed it in my mattress--
Screw Wall Street!--STILL have it all, n' God Bless.
Had I never let me credit-mindset
a mortgage manse for a neat shack, short debt;
nor spurn depression lessons from the folks;
I'd be no punch line in the profit joke.

Who are these clapping malingering clowns
whether the Dow goes up or down? Some sport!
Some day they'll be seen as the bums they are--
that "free market" means I sleep in my car.
Yo! Tough times returning, boom and bust towns,
aren't new; just News, to those who sell us short.

© Helga Ross  2008, 2019