Archive for the ‘Money & Finance Humor’ Category

Limerick Ode To Trump’s Federal Indictment

Saturday, June 10th, 2023

Trump’s fed’ral indictment’s a beaut,
Packed with facts very hard to dispute.
He may fin’ly be nailed
And at long last be jailed!
(In the meantime, he’ll raise tons of loot.)

Open Limerick To Joe Biden

Tuesday, May 23rd, 2023

The 14th Amendment is clear,
And the time to take action is here.
Quash the “ceiling” charade:
Our debts must be paid!
Kick extortionist pols in the rear!

Limerick Ode To Donald “The Genius” Trump

Sunday, October 2nd, 2016

The Donald’s a genius? Who knew
That huge losses are great to accrue?
Though I’d be morose
From a deficit close
To one billion, for Trump it’s a coup.

Limerick Ode To “Poor” Eric Cantor

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014

How’s this for a non-shocker: Ousted House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) is headed to Wall Street. Cantor is “joining investment bank Moelis & Co. as vice chairman and managing director” and “stands to earn $3.4 million in cash and stocks as a signing bonus, with $1.2 million guaranteed in just his first year.”

Limerick Ode To “Poor” Eric Cantor
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Though he lost to a Tea Party ranter,
Please feel free to stop weeping for Cantor,
Cuz he’s striking it rich.
Ain’t his life just a bitch?
Wall Street moolah is quite the enchanter.

Dear Donees (Limerick)

Monday, May 5th, 2014

Many of you already know that big-time Republican donor John Jordan just dissed Republican pols big time. Here’s what he said:

I go out of my way to avoid meeting candidates and politicians.” Why? “All too often, these people are so disappointing that it’s depressing. Most of these people you meet, they’re unemployable.… It’s just easier not to know.

But I’ll bet you’re unaware of John Jordan’s secret limerick writing talent:

Dear Republicans, here’s tons of cash
From my famously sizeable stash.
I believe you’re all fools,
But can count on you tools
To keep screwing the riff-raff and trash.

(Note from Mad Kane for the Humor-Impaired: I’m John Jordan’s extremely unofficial ghostwriter. )

Limerick Ode To Antonin Scalia

Monday, April 21st, 2014

I can’t help wondering whether Supreme Court Justice Scalia says weird things like this just for attention:

Speaking at the University of Tennessee College of Law on Tuesday, the longest-serving justice currently on the bench was asked by a student about the constitutionality of the income tax, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports.

Scalia responded that the government has the right to implement the tax, “but if it reaches a certain point, perhaps you should revolt.”

Limerick Ode To Antonin Scalia
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Suggesting that students revolt
Over taxes ain’t very adult.
It seems doltish Scalia
Has mouth diarrhea.
I surmise that his brain’s short a bolt.

Limerick Ode To Phyllis Schlafly

Wednesday, April 16th, 2014

Limerick Ode To Phyllis Schlafly
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Schlafly’s latest is nuts — no surprise!
But the GOP finds her so wise:
It seems gals will be left
Without husbands — bereft…
If we’re paid just as much as the guys.

This isn’t a joke: Phyllis Schlafly really wrote this in the Christian Post:

Suppose the pay gap between men and women were magically eliminated. If that happened, simple arithmetic suggests that half of women would be unable to find what they regard as a suitable mate.

Doomed Limerick

Thursday, October 17th, 2013

The federal government’s reopened and the debt ceiling crisis was averted at the last minute. So the question now is, will this happen again? Alas, many experts believe we’re doomed to have yet another shutdown.

Doomed Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane

This crisis is over for now,
But for those who are wiping their brow,
Please keep this in mind:
The very same bind
May in merely three months take a bow.

Open Limerick To The Media

Monday, February 11th, 2013

As Obama’s State of the Union address draws nearer, the press (thanks to GOP prodding) has become obsessed with one question: Why the focus on a liberal agenda, instead of jobs and the economy?

Open Limerick To The Media
By Madeleine Begun Kane

“Where’s your focus on jobs?” asks the press,
As Obama contends with a mess
Of issues galore,
Cuz his job at its core
Is to many dilemmas address.

So dear media, try this new task:
Press Republicans: Tough questions ask!
Like “Just what have THEY done
About jobs. Name just one
Thing they do besides block, bitch, and bask.”

Medicare Mishigas (Limerick)

Monday, December 10th, 2012

In the “fiscal cliff” negotiations, Republicans are irrationally demanding a hike in the Medicare eligibility age — what Nancy Pelosi refers to as “a trophy that the Republicans want.”

As Ezra Klein explains, this would not save money or help solve the health care cost problem, and it would hurt lots of people. Unfortunately, Republicans seem to favor symbolism over substance, and raising the Medicare eligibility age would be “a signal that they won something big on entitlements.”

Medicare Mishigas (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

GOPers want change that ain’t sage:
Raise the Medicare-el’gible age.
This does harm — won’t address
The health care cost mess:
It’s the fruit of entitlements-rage.

Limerick Memo To Republican Parents

Friday, May 25th, 2012

Memo To Republican Parents of College-Age Children: When federal student loan rates double this July, you’ll only have yourselves to blame:

Senate Republicans filibustered a bill to extend the current interest rate on federal student loans, blocking an extension from moving forward by a vote of 51-43 (with 60 votes needed to advance the bill). They blocked a similar effort earlier this month. Without an extension, interest rates will double in July from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent.

Limerick Memo To Republican Parents
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Sen. Republicans live in a bubble,
Untroubled that loan rates will double:
They repeatedly block
A Dem bill that would lock
In low rates, treating students like rubble.

Mitt’s “Telling” Message (Limerick)

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

Mitt Romney has big plans to “eliminate government programs and shutter cabinet agencies.” Which ones are on his dump-list? He refuses to say, responding, with a warped sort of honesty, that providing specifics could cost him the election.

Or as Jonathan Chait amusingly puts it: “One of the things I have found in previous elections is that announcing my plans makes people want to vote against me!”

Mitt’s “Telling” Message (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

There are agencies Mitt doesn’t like
And programs he’s planning to spike.
But he won’t tell us which
He’s intending to ditch.
You want pre-voting facts? Take a hike.

Poor Mitt (Limerick)

Monday, March 5th, 2012

I’m starting to think Ann Romney doesn’t want to be First Lady. Why else would someone with a family net worth of $250 million make stupidly transparent remarks like this?

“We can be poor in spirit, and I don’t even consider myself wealthy, which is an interesting thing, it can be here today and gone tomorrow.”

Poor Mitt (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Mitt, you should tell your wife, Ann,
To stop trying to help out her man.
For your cause, it ain’t healthy
To claim you ain’t wealthy:
Ann’s not feeling rich doesn’t scan.

Peppery Haiku

Friday, November 25th, 2011

Patrons pepper-spray
their fellow store customers.
Emulating cops?

(Yes this really happened at Wal-Mart.)

Limerick Ode To The Not-So-Super Committee

Monday, November 21st, 2011

The blame game is going strong with the customary false equivalencies.

Limerick Ode To The Not-So-Super Committee
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The Super Committee’s derailed,
And now we are being regaled
With tales blaming Dems
Sold as “media gems.”
It’s “balanced” reporting that’s failed.

The So-Called Liberal Media Strikes Again

Sunday, September 25th, 2011

Steve Benen points us to yet another example of the media blaming the wrong political party. According to the Washington Post, the Democrats, in resisting Republican precedent-changing demands for FEMA disaster relief offsets, was starting a “fight over a side issue:”

But Democrats decided to pick a fight over a side issue: an insistence by the GOP to pay for more disaster relief funding by cutting a popular auto-industry loan program. Republicans refused to back down.

So let me get this straight: Republicans try to change the rules, thereby holding disaster victims hostage … and it’s the Democrats’ fault?

This calls for two poems: a limerick and a tanka:

Dear Washington Post, you are wrong
With your Democrats started it song.
Disaster relief
Is the cause of this beef.
Give those offset demands a loud gong.

*****

Republican pols
Demand FEMA fund offsets—
Hold victims hostage,
While “liberal media”
Blames Dems for starting the fight.

*****

Limerick Ode To Rick “Fed Up With My Book!” Perry

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

When a candidate tries to distance himself from, say, his doctoral thesis, or a book written a dozen years ago, this passes the straight-face test.

But when Rick Perry tries this with Fed Up! (a book published last fall) it’s hard not to laugh out loud.

Perry’s problem, of course, is that his book is packed with extreme positions, too radical even for his own Republican party. So Perry’s campaign would have us believe that Perry’s Social Security is unconstitutional position from last year is no longer operative. The same goes for his call to repeal the 16th amendment and replace income taxes with a national sales tax.

Limerick Ode To Rick “Fed Up With My Book!” Perry
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Perry, that book you’d disclaim
Was written by you — you’re to blame.
And it’s new — ink’s not dry.
Yet you’re wondering why
We’re on to your radical game.

Limerick Ode To Standard & Poor’s Chutzpah

Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

Paul Krugman does a great job pointing out S&P’s chutzpah in downgrading U.S. debt:

America’s large budget deficit is, after all, primarily the result of the economic slump that followed the 2008 financial crisis. And S.& P., along with its sister rating agencies, played a major role in causing that crisis, by giving AAA ratings to mortgage-backed assets that have since turned into toxic waste.

Nor did the bad judgment stop there. Notoriously, S.& P. gave Lehman Brothers, whose collapse triggered a global panic, an A rating right up to the month of its demise. And how did the rating agency react after this A-rated firm went bankrupt? By issuing a report denying that it had done anything wrong.

Limerick Ode To Standard & Poor’s Chutzpah
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Standard & Poor’s, I’m impressed
Cuz you ought to be under arrest.
You caused the recession
With junk bond aggression.
Now you’re pounding your downgrading chest?

Limerick Ode To A Failed Presidency

Monday, August 1st, 2011

Paul Krugman has it exactly right: The President Surrenders. The debt ceiling deal Obama negotiated with the Republican hostage takers is well beyond terrible. And the ransom Obama paid to the GOP is a presidential error beyond comprehension — one that will make today’s bad economy look like fun and games.

What will it do to the poor, the sick, the elderly, the middle class, and the unemployed? I’m way too depressed to discuss it.

Congratulations, Republicans! You’ve got yourself a right-wing Republican President.

Limerick Ode To A Failed Presidency
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Obama, I’ve had it — you’ve failed.
It was time to be strong, but you bailed.
The Dems needed “bold.”
But instead you got rolled.
You’ve undermined all that we hailed.

Limerick Ode To Timid Mitt Romney

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

Not only does Mitt Romney have a bad habit of flip-flopping on issues, but he appears afraid to pick a position on the key issue of the day — the debt ceiling. Does he embrace John Boehner’s debt ceiling plan? Nobody knows (except maybe Mitt’s hairdresser) because Romney refuses to commit:

Limerick Ode To Timid Mitt Romney
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Romney, it’s time to take heed:
The job of a leader’s to lead.
So for once be a man:
Do you back Boehner’s plan?
Not choosing’s a cowardly deed.