THE CREDIT CRUNCHERS

The Service providers are now our masters
They tell us how to live,
So we can look forward to impending disasters
As we listen, obey and give.
From rip-off prices to the Credit Crunch
They take our cash without a smile,
And what we earn in a month, they’ll spend on lunch –
Like comparing our inch to their country mile.

Foregoing our customer’s right to choose –
It’s easy to do – they said – so we learned,
And we will wait until the conversion of the Jews
Before we ever get these rights returned.
They said they would give us a voice,
Then split processes in so many strands
Saying, this was to give us more choice
As they confused us with too many brands.

They said that high taxes must end –
Because taxes were just futilities,
And we should have more money to spend
If we let them run Public Utilities
Because the private Sector can do it much cheaper.
As private into the Public burrowed deeper and deeper
The City, happy to be handed this gift
Of what past generations had toiled for,

Very soon had created a seismic shift –
Mega bonuses and asset stripping galore.
What lowly bureaucrats had done
And, without acknowledgement, had run
These services well and without fuss,
In the ‘suits’ hands became a blunderbuss.
We’ll get results, no more distress –
They said as, higher went the shares

And higher the prices and the fares,
And still higher their pay and perks
As they somehow provided less and less;
And what had once worked, now nothing works.
Sheep-like we queue at every point –
To get our cash, to buy a stamp –
Obtain a ticket for a train, catch a bus or board a plane.

This trend is coming to an end –
The sloganeering, as you watched us spend,
There is no such thing as society
Because we are in the New Economy –
My friends – this trend is coming to an end;
Your self-serving claims are rumbled –
This time it’s different – let’s not pretend
Your pack of cards has tumbled –

Your influence is on the wane
And now old lessons must be learned again.
We were all fooled up to the Crash
As you slink off with cartloads of our cash.
We have allowed false prophets to wield the knives.
In truth, no economy, old or new
If not built on tested values true,

Built on foundations from the past
That carpet baggers like you can never grasp –  can last.
These phases come and go in waves
Producing con-men, tricksters, fools and knaves –
The so-called Captains of Industry
Not fit to clean a Public Lavatory.
Now you and all your business plans
That have been seen as shameful scams
We’ll send packing – none too soon
And then you’ll be dancing to our tune.

July 2008

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