Thursday, October 16, 2008

The Congress as Hamlet

To bail, or not to bail: that is the question:

Whether ‘tis politic in the end to suffer

The ups and downs of unfettered markets

Or to choose to bail against a sea of voters,

And by that bailing tax them? To bail: to hope;

No more; and by the bailing say we end

The Dow ache and thousand natural shocks

That banks are heir to. ‘Tis a consolation

Devoutly to be wish’d. To vote, to quail;

Not bail: perchance the market works: Ay, there's the rub;

For in that loss of aid how many banks will fail,

When we have shuffled off this active role,

Must give us pause: for it is laissez-faire

That sets calamity so close to home;

For who would bear the loss of sales and job,

The competitors’ wrong, the bank's rejection,

The pangs of foreclosure, the law’s delay,

The insolence of bureaucrats, the spurs

That gore the patient family with their kids.

When the congressman might just retire

With fullest pension? Who would burdens bear

To grunt and sweat under weary strife,

But that the dread of something after vote,

The undiscovered future from whose loss

No business returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather fear the debts we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus politics makes cowards of us all;

And thus the pol’s pallid hue of resolution

Is sicklied or with fear of focus groups

And bailouts of great hope and promise

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

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