A(nother) Christmas Poem

'Twas the week before Christmas and folks filled with rancor

Were counting the ways that each bonus-filled banker

Could celebrate New Years either locked in a cell

Or counting their stash in a corner of hell.

And there, with the Devil, they'll study the book

On how to become a respectable crook

By dealing derivatives, hedge funds and swaps

And paying off senators, judges and cops.

They'll all have a party with pretzels and beer

To honor the others who soon would be here-

Come Greenspan, Bernanke and Geithner and Summers

And any Chicago free market newcomers

Who believe in the value of huge piles of stuff

With never a thought about what is enough.

With less for the many and more for the few

A nice little laissez-faire Christmas to you.

Ten Commandments Revisited

While dial-spinning the other day trying to find something on my radio that didn't sound like elephants passing gas, I happened upon one of the numerous mike-hugging preachers who try to lure people into heaven by promising them the same kind of lifestyle they themselves enjoy (send twnty dollars).

This particular specimen was railing against the secular humanists, liberals and/or Democrats who were responsible for America's going to hell in a handcar by treating the Ten Commandments as Ten Suggestions and not following them as the infallible Word of God. This preacher was of the opinion that the only way to save our country was to revert to the Bible, capitalism and ethics and thus go back to the good old days of moral government under Hoover, Johnson, Reagan, Nixon and George W. Bush.

As a tireless investigator, I thought this might be a good time to assist the Reverend by invstigating each one of the Commandments and look for role models in the sources mentioned, i.e. government, the financial sector and  various holy books of our major religions. Let's start with the first one: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

O.K. The first thing I had to do was design a measuring tool. I picked the popular media - newspapers, magazines, billboards and TV- to find out which was more important this Christmas/Hanukah/Kwanzaa season: religious observances or commercial enterprises. For every mention of Jesus, Moses or any other religious figure, there were literally hundreds of sales, discounts, smiling Santa Clauses, Rudolphs and Frostys, dancing to the accompaniment of matching songs. Since the holiday season represents about 40% of the music industry's total business and a similar percentage of retail sales, in the race between God and Mammon, Mammon is ahead by five lengths going into the home stretch and increasing the lead every minute. God may listen, but money talks.

This also takes care of the second commandment concerning graven images. The top image on the national flag pole isn't God. It may go by different names, like "the Bottom Line" or "Number One," but it looks an awful lot like a dollar sign.

The third forbids taking the name of God in vain. Have you listened to the radio or TV lately?

The fourth commandment tells us to keep the sabbath day holy. Presumably, this would discourage keeping stores open seven days a week or even on Christmas Day. Hey, how about business? You can't make money when you're closed.

Number five commands us to honor our fathers and mothers. We do. We have Mother's Day, Father's Day, Grandmother's Day, and any other day that can become a buying opportunity. We also make it a point of talking a lot about care for the aged and posting lousy scores in actually caring for them. Of course, it's a different story if you can afford five grand a month for a nursing home.

Six: "Thou shalt not kill." Are you kidding? It's part of our national policy. Today's news related our new philosophy of "Shooting more bad guys." Or people who are probably bad guys. Or people who might be bad guys or people who were walking next to some bad guys. Bumping off leaders we don't like is old hat. Unfortunately, we can't ask them to confirm or deny the charge. BTW, if you really want mass murder, try the Old Testament.

The seventh commandment advises us to stay away from adultery. Come on - what would happen to Congress and the NBA if people stopped cheating on their wives? Well, there's always golf......

Stealing (number eight) is a broad term. It isn't too much of an extension to include the whole banking industry.

False witness is the entire foundation of political campaigns and advertising. Call the other guy (or product) enough bad names and people will flock to your side. Psst - Obama's a Muslim.

Last, we have the prohibition against coveting your neighbor's house, wife, ass, etc. I maintain coveting is the basis for our entire economic system. If you covet something, you'll buy it or steal it(!). If you accept that what you have is good enough, the economy collapses. Try imagining a non-coveting society and think about cell phones, iPads, home theaters and new cars. If you experience a conflict, you'll understand the point.

The conclusion I've reached is that liberals or conservatives aren't to blame for our decline. It's the hypocrisy we are exposed to 24/7 and its effect on us. And only we can stop it - if we're willing to take the consequences.

A New and Better (?) Standard

After exhaustive study, I feel it's time to introduce a new measure of brain function. The old I.Q. standard has been so severely tested by people like George W. Bush and Sarah Palin, it seems there's a need to get a new measure which will yield more positive results, i.e. a score higher than the ambient temperature, The answer, I feel is the Rectal Intelligence Scale (RIS). This score is achieved when the head (and, therefore, the brain) of the subject is located in the traditional place where the sun doesn't shine. Since test results on the RIS depend on the kind of thinking resulting from the brain placement, the higher numbers generally reflect the most idiotic, illogical or asinine reasoning.

Hence, under the RIS, Mr. Bush would rank as one of the highest scorers in domestic policy and Mrs. Palin would lead the pack in foreig affairs. Neither political party nor world leader would consistently score higher or lower on a long-term basis, but all would occasionally have outstandingly high scores to which they could point with pride.

• boguseconomist's diary :: ::

Our Congress, for example, would have some remarkable scorers, particularly with the incoming "conservative" members of the House. The kind of reasoning that criticizes the tax giveaway to the banks under Greenspan, Geithner, Sommers and Bernanke while advocating less government regulation and oversight easily could raise a congressperson's RIS (RI Score) by several points all by itself. Coupling that with a stated desire to cut the budget while extending tax breaks to those who, among others, gleaned the most from the financial crisis, could jack it up further.

Points would be earned for anyone who spends large amounts of time condemning the idea of gays in the military when at the same time, we hear reports that our country is scoring 17th in education worldwide and worse than that in health care. Oh yes, let's not forget to award RIS points to those who rant against giving citizenship to foreigners who complete high school and a couple years of college. C'mon, these people might learn enough about the system to demand better educational opportunities for most citizens, the same system used by the other countries who are currently ahead of us.

Contributing to the high RIS ratings of people like Mitch McConnell and other defense hawks is the plain fact that the more money we pour into the corrupt snakepits of Iraq and Afghanistan, the richer the people get whose interest is keeping the war going as long as possible. This goes double for the high-minded people in our thriving defense industry who pay for countless ads telling us how much good they're doing for the country, but very little about how much their cost overruns, waste and lobbying money is costing us.

Speaking of RIS points, if someone could explain why giving billions of dollars to an Israeli government that has consistenly stuck its thumb in our eye and ignored more U.N. resolutions than Iraq did helps the United States, a good explanation would be worth a sizeable reduction.

Finally, if we adopted the RIS, the results could be published in the candidates' campaign literature, which would be informative, since the IQs of candidates is seldom, if ever, given out. If we're thought not to care about how smart a potential congressperson or president is, perhaps we might benefit from finding out how much of a horse's ass they might be.

The RIS examination would be composed and scored by a committee comprised of defrocked members of the Chamber of Commerce.