First Visecentric Poem!
click to enlarge
The Zany Grunt of Funds, LLC
By: Danny K. Ko (May '09; Last half completed June 1, 2010)
July 10th, 2010 | Graphics: Monica EunJi "Ori" Kim |
Let us invest it all, you and I,
when the financial bubbles Made-off as we sigh,
like Sodom and Gomorrah blighted Lot's wife;
Let us invest, via Caymen Island accounts,
the uber-hysterical flaunts
of Burberry-ties on pin-striped hedgehogs
and hubris-laden gnomes with pretentious jobs:
Accounts that are wired across my global rolodex
Of salacious recklessness
To lead you to a whistle-blowing tension...
Oh, do not wince, “She'll miss Rent."
Let us invest and forget your defeasement.
At the Fed the pansies flutter
Talking of RGE Monitor...
The Commanding Heights video shown to sophomores,
The commanding lessons of Baht swung to sophomores,
Instilling undergrads from the podium,
engendered erudite fears indoors,
Let panic toast Bank of Indiana its demise,
Professed fiat made us counterfeiters,
And as a nation to cure, not by one’s blunder,
Taught ways to blame the past, hence recovers.
And indeed there will be crimes
For the common lessons of miscreants
Tantalizing MBA sophomores;
There will be crimes, there will be crimes
To fawn to make a pitch to the PhD students;
There will be crimes to raise self-interest,
And crimes bloom from networking naively,
That smears old boys’ club in earnest;
Crimes for you and crimes for me,
And crimes yet for obvious cronyisms,
And affinity frauds through nepotisms,
Thus, happy-hour mingling seems too cliquey.
At the Fed the pansies flutter
Talking of RGE Monitor...
And indeed there will be crimes
To speed-poll, ‘Whom to Bluff,’ and ‘Where to Bluff?’
Crimes to taint Société Générale,
To Offices of Inspector General--
[They will say: ‘How subliminal is Finance!’]
My ascension, my greed puts me over you in a trance,
My corporate looting stash, my severance paid out as we dance--
[They’ll say: ‘But there is no free lunch in Finance!’]
Shall I bluff
Bluntly to the IRS?
In fancy ploys there is crime
For cronies whose wanton desires put nations in distress.
For I have shaken their hands, even hugged them all:
Vexed the regulators, politicos,
Glad that my heists will be featured in Daily Kos;
Keen on steering white collars governed to appall
Within an innocent design each morn.
Am I right to have forsworn?
And I was entrusted with pallets, embraced by all--
Upon pallets intended to heal Iraq’s fraise,
And when I am entrusted, in God’s name by whim,
When I picked Oprah to the Senate kraal,
Alas, more plunder passim
To spoil not so prosecuted heirs as ashtrays?
Am I right to have forsworn?
And I see the evil lust lurking, head to shin,
Governor’s crusade for firms’ moral boot camp
[But in limelight, caught with a MySpace tramp!]
Is it Portland air of boys
That induces mayoral ploys?
Lust reminiscent of Roman Bathhouses,
And should I have forsworn?
And how much plunder passim?
Agree that I tricked the poor to open new accounts
Signed up at many branches and succumb
To bounce protection that enhances (illegal) spending?
Should have been a Fico Score needle
Luring more wonky home ownership?
And there is what’s called fringe banking but with a stigma!
Death and payday loans,
Work…taxed…too much pain to keep my ring tones,
All I need from you: poor credit karma
Should I, after usury rate, late fee,
Return some earnings to good folks in penury?
But though I felt guilt and torment, guilt and lament,
Though bounced checks are opaque, fees are levied as courtesy on skewers,
I am no Galbraith—no care for my sisters;
I have seen pelicans prey on pigeons in swarms,
I have seen mackerels swallow mackerels the size of my arms,
And by tort, I was hellbent.
And why would it be too big a failure?
After LEH, the stock options, AIGs,
Among the CDO-squared, among the bankruptcies,
In slim elevators,
Not General Motors,
To pitch Obama-esquely, but zanier
Beyond blueprints for hope sung by Jay-Z and Keys,
To chant: "We, Berle and Means assume control,
Assume you fail, you can't bailout with tenure"--
As if mantras twist with it, a loophole
Internships, abused, can't save your career,
whether storms, persevere?
And why would it be too big a failure
In slim elevators
After the RSVPs and hob-nobs and the Linked-ins,
After the shake-outs, after RIPs, after petitions for liquidations –
As doomed iPad nations?--
Let's fund campaigns or protest for democracy!
Stroll to the Hamptons with union leaders on lavish ecstasy:
In slim elevators
No room for the poor workers, no white knight to demur,
“Noblisse obliges”-scheming leftists deny
abuse of their volunteer,
Trust for power, most top-tier
Yes! I am sort of like Ingersolls, or what-not;
Not in favor of the Living Wage Act
To agree with Bloomberg, profit intact,
As long as I monopolize online,
Develop with grants, compute by cloud;
Surpass SemWeb, but fairness can't keep up;
Bare-minimum wage, so Turks are allowed,
Chariots can't be controlled from the top,
Ends Steam-rolled with a Homeless sign.
Rank and Files, Rank and Files,
Just enough to collect Air Miles,
How do I follow liquidity? Do I seek windmills?
Shall I hide inside oil plumes, less systemic risk than BP spills,
From this point, there is a Starbucks for refills.
Second cups poured by unionized Yank.
Not all chains were recession-proof, as you'd say:
What matters is the gear for quick trading,
Low latency, high frequency arb'ing.
We haven't yet thanked Greenspan or Barney Frank,
By “liking this” mix, you are my hero
Till explosions cast “Countdown to Zero.”
the end
By: Danny K. Ko (May '09; Last half completed June 1, 2010)
July 10th, 2010 | Graphics: Monica EunJi "Ori" Kim |
Let us invest it all, you and I,
when the financial bubbles Made-off as we sigh,
like Sodom and Gomorrah blighted Lot's wife;
Let us invest, via Caymen Island accounts,
the uber-hysterical flaunts
of Burberry-ties on pin-striped hedgehogs
and hubris-laden gnomes with pretentious jobs:
Accounts that are wired across my global rolodex
Of salacious recklessness
To lead you to a whistle-blowing tension...
Oh, do not wince, “She'll miss Rent."
Let us invest and forget your defeasement.
At the Fed the pansies flutter
Talking of RGE Monitor...
The Commanding Heights video shown to sophomores,
The commanding lessons of Baht swung to sophomores,
Instilling undergrads from the podium,
engendered erudite fears indoors,
Let panic toast Bank of Indiana its demise,
Professed fiat made us counterfeiters,
And as a nation to cure, not by one’s blunder,
Taught ways to blame the past, hence recovers.
And indeed there will be crimes
For the common lessons of miscreants
Tantalizing MBA sophomores;
There will be crimes, there will be crimes
To fawn to make a pitch to the PhD students;
There will be crimes to raise self-interest,
And crimes bloom from networking naively,
That smears old boys’ club in earnest;
Crimes for you and crimes for me,
And crimes yet for obvious cronyisms,
And affinity frauds through nepotisms,
Thus, happy-hour mingling seems too cliquey.
At the Fed the pansies flutter
Talking of RGE Monitor...
And indeed there will be crimes
To speed-poll, ‘Whom to Bluff,’ and ‘Where to Bluff?’
Crimes to taint Société Générale,
To Offices of Inspector General--
[They will say: ‘How subliminal is Finance!’]
My ascension, my greed puts me over you in a trance,
My corporate looting stash, my severance paid out as we dance--
[They’ll say: ‘But there is no free lunch in Finance!’]
Shall I bluff
Bluntly to the IRS?
In fancy ploys there is crime
For cronies whose wanton desires put nations in distress.
For I have shaken their hands, even hugged them all:
Vexed the regulators, politicos,
Glad that my heists will be featured in Daily Kos;
Keen on steering white collars governed to appall
Within an innocent design each morn.
Am I right to have forsworn?
And I was entrusted with pallets, embraced by all--
Upon pallets intended to heal Iraq’s fraise,
And when I am entrusted, in God’s name by whim,
When I picked Oprah to the Senate kraal,
Alas, more plunder passim
To spoil not so prosecuted heirs as ashtrays?
Am I right to have forsworn?
And I see the evil lust lurking, head to shin,
Governor’s crusade for firms’ moral boot camp
[But in limelight, caught with a MySpace tramp!]
Is it Portland air of boys
That induces mayoral ploys?
Lust reminiscent of Roman Bathhouses,
And should I have forsworn?
And how much plunder passim?
Agree that I tricked the poor to open new accounts
Signed up at many branches and succumb
To bounce protection that enhances (illegal) spending?
Should have been a Fico Score needle
Luring more wonky home ownership?
And there is what’s called fringe banking but with a stigma!
Death and payday loans,
Work…taxed…too much pain to keep my ring tones,
All I need from you: poor credit karma
Should I, after usury rate, late fee,
Return some earnings to good folks in penury?
But though I felt guilt and torment, guilt and lament,
Though bounced checks are opaque, fees are levied as courtesy on skewers,
I am no Galbraith—no care for my sisters;
I have seen pelicans prey on pigeons in swarms,
I have seen mackerels swallow mackerels the size of my arms,
And by tort, I was hellbent.
And why would it be too big a failure?
After LEH, the stock options, AIGs,
Among the CDO-squared, among the bankruptcies,
In slim elevators,
Not General Motors,
To pitch Obama-esquely, but zanier
Beyond blueprints for hope sung by Jay-Z and Keys,
To chant: "We, Berle and Means assume control,
Assume you fail, you can't bailout with tenure"--
As if mantras twist with it, a loophole
Internships, abused, can't save your career,
whether storms, persevere?
And why would it be too big a failure
In slim elevators
After the RSVPs and hob-nobs and the Linked-ins,
After the shake-outs, after RIPs, after petitions for liquidations –
As doomed iPad nations?--
Let's fund campaigns or protest for democracy!
Stroll to the Hamptons with union leaders on lavish ecstasy:
In slim elevators
No room for the poor workers, no white knight to demur,
“Noblisse obliges”-scheming leftists deny
abuse of their volunteer,
Trust for power, most top-tier
Yes! I am sort of like Ingersolls, or what-not;
Not in favor of the Living Wage Act
To agree with Bloomberg, profit intact,
As long as I monopolize online,
Develop with grants, compute by cloud;
Surpass SemWeb, but fairness can't keep up;
Bare-minimum wage, so Turks are allowed,
Chariots can't be controlled from the top,
Ends Steam-rolled with a Homeless sign.
Rank and Files, Rank and Files,
Just enough to collect Air Miles,
How do I follow liquidity? Do I seek windmills?
Shall I hide inside oil plumes, less systemic risk than BP spills,
From this point, there is a Starbucks for refills.
Second cups poured by unionized Yank.
Not all chains were recession-proof, as you'd say:
What matters is the gear for quick trading,
Low latency, high frequency arb'ing.
We haven't yet thanked Greenspan or Barney Frank,
By “liking this” mix, you are my hero
Till explosions cast “Countdown to Zero.”
the end
Enter Countdown to Zero
