Perishable Expectations [Today's News Poem, September 25, 2010]

Perishable Expectations [Today's News Poem, September 25, 2010]

Weaponized giggles, leisure transactions:
Full contact word sport.
Each expectation: value editions.

Croon to me nest eggs, tell me your longings.
Fraud gilds the sky here.
Drudgery's common. London just happens

Only this once, so fly in my talons.
Shed tears, not blood dear:
Nobody needed like I have needed.

“While these anecdotes provide colour, they don't solve the puzzles posed in the prologue, such as why Madoff started a criminal racket when he was a well-respected multi-millionaire and how he could live with himself for destroying friends and charities. The book doesn't quite get behind his charming, steely facade – but it suggests few people ever have. Apparently, the elderly convict still gets bugged by felons for investment advice.”
– Jessica Holland, The Observer, Sunday 26 September 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/26/bernard-madoff-believers-financial-scam-books

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Commuting by Limo [Today's News Poem, September 24, 2010]

Commuting by Limo [Today's News Poem, September 24, 2010]

Market the beast with a ticket of plastic;
Swallow your interest with relish
And laugh at traffic ants of metal lights
Aligned in rows for tolls, as worker-slights.

Fuming on freeways; impressed they're not drastic:
Smashing my windows and tearing my servants
Of fraud from sockets. No! They sniff the trail
Of dollar bills and chase another's tail.

“In a bleak assessment delivered Thursday at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s 13th annual International Banking Conference, Mr. Volcker said:
The reason we are all here is that the financial system is broken. We can use that term in late 2008, and I think it’s fair to still use the term, unfortunately. We know that parts of it are absolutely broken, like the mortgage market which only happens to be the most important part of our capital markets.”
– Dealbook, The New York Times, September 24, 2010, 8:41 am
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/volcker-financial-system-is-broken/

“While consumers have done their part by shying away from exceeding new credit limits and turning increasingly to debit cards, the question is to what extent are consumers voluntarily reducing their balances, and to what extent are banks making the decision for them. ”
– CHRISTINE HAUSER, The New York Times, September 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/business/25credit.html

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Citizen-Dictator of the World [Today's News Poem, September 22, 2010]

Citizen-Dictator of the World [Today's News Poem, September 22, 2010]

Mention it in passing, if at all.
That's important. Please
remember to pretend it wasn't spoken.
When it's time to pull
the trigger, kill this thing;
when the shit has hit the cooling ducts,
when we screw the pooch on paper shredders,
like temps we did in conference rooms—
then we'll soar and chase
our bank accounts and land
on marble courts, bedecked
to look like home. A nation
in our image—nay—
a planet with our visage,
where everything is permission,
if not outright submission.

“But there is a twist in this shift to the East: Many of the banks growing in these low-tax oases have Swiss pedigrees. And their clients are not only Asia’s growing number of millionaires but also wealthy Americans and Europeans who, lawyers say, have been spooked by mounting scrutiny from the tax authorities in their own countries. ”
– LYNNLEY BROWNING, The New York Times, Published: September 22, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/business/global/23swiss.htm

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Supercrook Flies Up Up And Away [Today's News Poem, May 13, 2010]

Supercrook Flies Up Up And Away [Today's News Poem, May 13, 2010]

Tuning to news and catching the clip:
Cops in pursuit of robbers—or twits.
Packing the drive in briefcase, I watch
Shots on the freeway-fantasy-trip;
Calling my banker: “wire me my split.”
Burning my files, I finish my scotch.
Clients are screaming curses—I think.
Disconnect phones, I watch as they clink
Cuffs on the rookie driving to jail.
Flight's in two hours. Up is my bail.

“Authorities say they've captured a bank robbery suspect in Long Beach following a freeway chase and a shooting but the four-hour hunt continues for possible accomplices. He was captured Thursday afternoon when tear gas flushed him from a hiding place under Interstate 405. The gas sparked a brushfire on a freeway median that was quickly contained.”
– The Associated Press, 05/13/2010 03:10:59 PM PDT
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_15079582?nclick_check=1

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