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21 Feb 09 - 02:27 PM (#2572596) Subject: Lyr Add: The Banks of Denial From: GUEST,Pheasant Plucker THE BANKS OF DENIAL O hark the drums are beating and no longer can you stay, The bugle's loudly sounding to summon you away; You are ordered down to Westminster far from your dear Square Mile, To face the British Parliament where the bankers are on trial. Sir Freddy, O Sir Freddy, now you should weep and mourn, And you must curse and rue the day that ever you were born, For parting with our money is like parting us from life, Why didn't you just stay at home with your trophy wife? "Indeed I'm deeply sorry sirs that this thing should be so, For the market gave us orders and we were bound to go; We did forsake all common sense and likewise native care, To lend and spend so freely, and scatter we know not where. Tis true that billions have all gone, and I don't know where they went, For we lent them to some other banks that to still others lent, Who onwards yet to others lent much further down the track, Who lent to people far too poor to ever pay it back. Our ingenious lovely fancy was in packaging the loans, To sell them in the market so the bad debts weren't our own, And with the proceeds of these sales we lived in wondrous style, And layers of debt they multiplied to overtop the pile. Great enterprises flourished and like a wonder grew, Financed by marvellous instruments that round the country flew; Like a bubble it expanded and it seemed 'twould never end, With no limit on consumers to spend and spend and spend. The margins were too slender, and the asset base too small, I'm afraid that underneath it there was nothing there at all; And when we looked to find it, sure, there wasn't any cash, Now all the dreams are vanished like the wind blows through the ash. I'm sorry the dream has ended but I am not to blame, And if I had my time again I would surely do the same; For how do you prick a bubble while good fortune it does smile? And you will get small comfort from the banks of denial." My curse upon you bankers and upon your fateful loans, For you've robbed honest people of our employment and our homes; You took from poor men and women the fruits of our hard toil, And left us without protection all on our native soil. ©Pheasant Plucker Productions 21 Feb 2009 |
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21 Feb 09 - 02:33 PM (#2572602) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Banks of Denial From: Joe Offer Thanks for posting the song - can you give us some background information on it? Context is always helpful. I don't want to sound ungrateful or anything, but when one starts a thread and posts one song and says nothing about it, it feels so incomplete. Yeah, I know it's a parody of this version of "Banks of the Nile," but who wrote the song? I suppose I could look up the characters you're referring to, but they're not ones I readily recognize here in California. "Sir Freddy" has me stumped. I thought he might be a member of the British Cabinet, but that didn't work. Oh, I'm so fwustwated... Then again, considering your last submission (which was pretty darn clever), perhaps I'll just have to wait... -Joe- |
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21 Feb 09 - 02:54 PM (#2572616) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Banks of Denial From: Acorn4 That is very good indeed, but some small credit should go to where all those pun titles come form, ie : country and western music -Pam Tillis -"They Call me Cleopatra 'cos I'm the Queen of Denial" |
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21 Feb 09 - 04:11 PM (#2572655) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Banks of Denial From: Phil Edwards Fred Goodwin, notoriously rapacious former boss of the now struggling Royal Bank of Scotland, I think. |
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21 Feb 09 - 04:24 PM (#2572661) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Banks of Denial From: Bonnie Shaljean Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Can we have one for Anglo Irish Bank please? |
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21 Feb 09 - 04:33 PM (#2572666) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Banks of Denial From: GUEST,Pheasant Plucker Sorry Joe for not explaining the context of this song. The attitude of the banks has caused a great deal of public anger in Britain, not least because they have been given huge sums of public money without being called to account in any way for their behaviour in bringing about the crisis which is affecting so many of us. We in Britain greatly admire the example set by your new President Obama of refusing to pay excessive bonuses to bankers out of taxpayers' funds. I despair at our leader's apparent aversion to upsetting his friends in the banking industry. In the song above 'Sir Freddy' is Sir Fred Goodwin, the former CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland, better known as "Fred the Shred" for his aggressive cost-cutting measures (this means he fired lots of employees) in pursuit of greater profits for his company and greater bonuses for himself. He was one of a number of senior bankers summoned from their offices in the financial centre of the City of London, otherwise known as the Square Mile, to appear before the Treasury Committee at the House of Commons on 10 February 2009 to apologise for their role in the current financial crisis. Their apologies were so limited that it was completely unclear to all observers as to what they were actually apologising for. However an apology was called for, and they each duly gave one. They then went on to explain that none of them had personally done anything wrong, and displayed an utterly incredible lack of insight into the nature of the crisis as if the financial meltdown was really just a little bit of bad weather which couldn't be helped. Perhaps the term "a banker's apology" will one day become a useful description for the empty but necessary ritual whereby the guilty party can make a public atonement by expressing sorrow for the outcome of their behaviour without admitting responsibility for the behaviour in the first place. Personally I feel that the bankers who apologised at the House of Commons acted rather like a driver at fault in a road traffic accident who says to the victim "I'm sorry that you feel you have been injured." Maybe this short rhyme sums it up better:- "My banker is an cheery feller, Who stole from me my own umbrella; And now he has the nerve to say - Its a shame you're getting wet today." I would strongly recommend reading J K Galbraith's elegant and enjoyable book The Great Crash; it is the only interesting economics textbook in existence, and it is still completely relevant today. Then, as now, a huge bubble of speculation built up in which every expert explained how it would continue. It didn't. This confirms the instinct which every soldier possesses, as well as every lowly employee, that when somebody tells you they understand what is going on they are 100% wrong. Acorn4 - I first heard the term "Cleopatra, Queen of Denial" in an episode of 'Roseanne' but I suspect it has been around for a long time.
-Joe- |
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21 Feb 09 - 05:56 PM (#2572710) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Banks of Denial From: GUEST,Pheasant Plucker Bonnie Shaljean asked:- >Can we have one for Anglo Irish Bank please? From The Daily Mail, 21 Feb 2009:- Anglo Irish Bank failed to keep tabs on high-risk borrowers, auditors find ...Auditors found around 15 customers owed the financial institution more than 500million euro (£448m) - but the bank believed these were supported by assets and personal guarantees... Er, Bonnie, you didn't let Packie keep hold of that last royalty cheque by any chance, did you? Actually I can't quite get my head around what it is the Anglo Irish Bank is supposed to have done, otherwise I'd love to write a nice little pastiche, although, as Joe has observed, I don't write them very often. I'd much rather write something about the CCE/Cluain Tarbh situation except that I wouldn't want to expose the Mudcat to an action by your man Himself for seditious or blasphemous libel. Pheasant Plucker |
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21 Feb 09 - 06:02 PM (#2572716) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Banks of Denial From: Acorn4 What you haven't told us yet is who wrote it -because it is absolutely spot on. The word "banker" has become rhyming slang , n'est ce pas? |
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21 Feb 09 - 06:14 PM (#2572723) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Banks of Denial From: Acorn4 Reading the history of an event called the "South Sea Bubble" will also bring up remarkable parallels. We learn nothing from History unfortunately. |
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21 Feb 09 - 07:09 PM (#2572747) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Banks of Denial From: GUEST,Pheasant Plucker Acorn4 wrote:- >The word "banker" has become rhyming slang , n'est ce pas? I believe that most experienced onanists feel terribly insulted at being called "bankers"; after all they only abuse themselves, not the whole country. Now as it happens my nephew Frankie is 15, and when he isn't stuffing himself with pizza or playing on his Xbox... well you know what 15 year-olds are like... Anyway the other week he was so engrossed in his Xbox that he stepped out into the road where he nearly got run over. His mother, my sister Grace, yelled out to him that she'd fecking murder him if he went and got himself killed. The upshot was that she told him he'd better go to Confession last Saturday Now our parish priest, Father Denvir, is a lovely man - a little old-fashioned perhaps, but completely unshockable. Well Frankie told me afterwards that he had never seen the old man so angry as when he confessed that he'd been doing a bit of "merchant banking". According to Frankie the Father swore that all bankers are condemned to the lowest pit of hell for several eternities - and then their troubles will really begin. (This might have something to do with some problems in the Diocesan pension fund.) Anyway Frankie explained to the Father that he'd only been playing with himself, you know, and he got off with three Hail Mary's. Frankie has worked out that as BOGOF offers go, this is pretty good; it works out at one Hail Mary for every...oh, never mind...but at least he knows now that his dedicated onanism is a lot safer for his soul than banking. Why, Grace even bought him a new box of man size Kleenex after I told her the gist of the story; I've never seen Frankie blush so much before! |
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21 Feb 09 - 07:44 PM (#2572768) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Banks of Denial From: oldhippie Now there's a song challenge "Frankie & The Father" !! |
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21 Feb 09 - 08:40 PM (#2572796) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Banks of Denial From: TheSnail I used to drink in a pub that was full of weary bankers. |
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22 Feb 09 - 07:36 PM (#2573331) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Banks of Denial From: GUEST,Pheasant Plucker Acorn4 commented:- >Reading the history of an event called the "South Sea Bubble" will also bring up remarkable parallels. We learn nothing from History unfortunately. Some economists set great store by periodic business cycles, while some have faith in long Kondratieff waves of economic activity; others have found alignments with sunspot activity. A select few believe in the Easter Bunny. The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, believed that the cycle of 'boom and bust' had ended. Generally, give or take a few years for the intermission of a war, it takes about 30 years for a new generation to emerge with a belief that it will be different this time. It never is. The only way to make a fortune in the market is to persuade a lot of fools to hand their money over; the more fools there are, the longer this lasts. When the supply of fools runs out the bubble bursts. Do read Charles Mackay: 'Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds' for details of the South Sea Bubble, the wonderful Mississippi Scheme and the great Dutch Tulipomania. It makes hugely entertaining reading, even though it may not be an entirely reliable source. Pheasant Plucker |
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22 Feb 09 - 08:02 PM (#2573350) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Banks of Denial From: GUEST,Pheasant Plucker I did offer Bonnie Shaljean a song about the affairs of the Comhaltas dispute with Senator Labhras O Murchu. This seemed to be, and indeed it surely is, a fairly clear cut issue of the exercise of despotic powers. However the more I learned about it the less I understood, until in the end I felt that any saga based on the story would, like the Saga of Brian Boru itself, be better remembered for its absence. Instead may I offer her the following extremely loose translation of an 18th century Irish epigram:- HOPE The powers are thrown down, blown like dust in the wind, Alexander, Caesar, and their successors likewise, Grass grows on Tara, look where Troy now lies: Surely even the Senator's day will soon pass. © Pheasant Plucker Productions 2009 Pheasant Plucker |
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23 Feb 09 - 08:29 AM (#2573658) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Banks of Denial From: GUEST,HughM "a number of senior bankers..." Pheasant Plucker, you have just reminded me of what I was told some time ago: the collective noun for bankers is a "wunch". |