Bankrupt Banks

Banks take and use your cash
To loan it out at high
Interest rates in a flash,
Pay you a negligible percentage,
Always taking unfair advantage,
But charge a mint if you borrow,
And their contracts' small print,
Hard to read, brings you sorrow.

They write big mortgages
For overpriced properties
To unqualified buyers
At loan shark rates,
But quickly foreclose
When the debtor can't pay
And a neglected house vacates.
Then, the amount of the mortgage rises
Higher than the home value prices.
And they are stuck with rundown
Homes no one wants to buy
Because the prices are much too high.

Thus, their position is not sunny,
Since they can't return
The depositors' money
Because the law requires them
To only hold one fifth of cash on hand
And if there is a run by creditors,
Their business would end,
But then, they go to good, old Uncle Sam
To tell him they are in a jam,
They plead, yell and shout,
"Help us out, help us out",
So, we, taxpayers have to bail them out,
While the people lose their homes
And the bankers keep the loans
And it is most certainly plain
That the same crooks will
Repeat their profitable spiel again.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2008 Alfred Charasz