Holiday Cheer?

For a little holiday cheer—or maybe not—here are revised lyrics for “My Favorite Things” that I wrote for the Urban Institute holiday party.

If you don’t know the original song, you can see a clip of the song from The Sound of Music or just the lyrics.

Happy Holidays!

Banks are in trouble, the market’s in tatters.
Red ink is flowing through all fiscal matters.
Housing foreclosures, collapsed IRAs.
We’ve surely known many happier days.

Treasury bails out the biggest of lenders,
Trying to spur all the nation’s big spenders.
Prices are falling, deflation’s a threat.
You’ll want to buys things but don’t buy them yet.

Stock prices crashing, those T bills look great now.
I’d like to retire but can’t figure out how.
Refinancing mortgages might save some folks.
Wall Street high flyers are all now bad jokes.

When my job goes,
When the bank calls,
When I’m feeling sad,
I simply recall all those crashing hedge funds,
And then I don’t feel so bad.

Billions for Bear Stearns but nothing for Lehman;
We’ll help the Big Three but we just won’t say when.
Fannie and Freddy got loan guarantees
But Merrill Lynch we cut off at the knees.

Harvard’s out billions, endowment’s collapsed now.
Fancy investment’s no longer a cash cow.
Madoff played Ponzi with other folks’ cash.
Everyone got rich before the big crash.

So what do we do with our credit all gone now?
Stimulus might work but we just don’t know how.
Our infrastructure could use patching up.
Each state is begging with its own tin cup.

When my stocks crash,
When my house goes,
When I’m feeling sad,
I think about Wall Street’s big bonuses gone,
And then I don’t feel so bad.