Global deleveraging means economic restructuring,

Contract renegotiation,

Property revaluation,

Derivative reassessment,

Pyramids and true confessions,

Mark to market causes subtraction

Triggering regulatory action,

Default, foreclosure, bankruptcy,

Slipping the noose of the fiduciary

Debt, debt, debt, and more borrowing,

No safehouse for value storing,

Nor gold nor oil nor art nor gems

As on falling currency they depend.

Unemployment, loss of income,

More and more go unpaid,

The vicious cycle of downward pressure,

As prices and wages slide down the grade,

Bonds and credit getting tighter,

As community needs go unmet,

Police and fire, education,

Prisons and bureaucrats, roads and the vet,

All learning how to do with less,

After decades of patronage and largess,

Consumption conspicuous without end,

An appointment with judgment it portends.

Now will America learn to cope

With real needs, not booze and dope.

Food and security, heat and light,

Clothes for the poor, and warmth in the night,

Not thousands of gadgets and SUVs,

Swimming pools and huge TVs..

It is now that leadership faces the test,

To unite in peace, not divide through conquest.

The restructuring’s real,

No way to avoid,

This will take a few years

The frauds to void and

Replace with a social contract that’s fair.

That’s all the people want, not gas and hot air.

NBS

2-9-09

Alameda