A Visit from St. Nickel-less

'Twas the night before Christmas, and after the bell

Analysts were preparing more recommendations to sell;

The stock-holders had been hung out to dry with despair,

With predictions that Dow Jones would continue as bear;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of college money drained from their heads,

And Mama in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,

Could not settle our brains worth a long winter’s crap —

When out all around there arose layoff chatter,

After spending my life climbing corporate ladder.

Away from big profits we flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters, and threw out the cash.

The doom in the eyes of the new fallen many,

Gave the luster of value to even a penny;

When what to my wandering eyes should appear,

But incalculable losses from investments unclear,

How could age old investors be this out of whack?

I knew in a moment it must have been crack.

More rabid than bats the coursers they came

Someone whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:

“Now! Crasher, now! Cancer, now! Lancer, and Vixen,

“On! Vomit, on! Stupid, on! Blunder and Nixon;

To the repossessed Porsche! To the Street of the Wall!

“Cash dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

As bubbles before the realities hit,

When they meet with an obstacle, must not admit;

So up toward the housing foreclosures they flew,

With a sleigh full of assumptions too good to be true:

And then after thinking Did somebody goof?

Came the hemming and hawing of economists aloof.

As I grew in my dread, hoping for a turn around,

Down the chimney St. Nickel-less came with a bound:

He was mess’d up for sure, a sight not to forget,

His fur clothes had been garnished to pay for past debt;

A bag nearly empty was hung on his back,

And he look’d like a panhandler in need of a snack:

His eye brows were wrinkled! His dimples: how scary,

His cheeks needed lotion, his breath reeked of sherry;

The drool from his mouth drained way down to his toe,

And the yellow stained beard was like huskies in snow;

The hope of a pipedream past held in belief,

Had gone up in smoke with no asset relief.

He had a broad face, and a distended belly

In desperate need of a trip to the deli:

Others’ folly had spelled the fall of this old elf,

And I cried when I saw him in spite of myself;

The stink of this guy and the cyst on his head

Soon gave me to thinking I’d rather be dead.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And stole all the stockings; then turn’d with a jerk,

It’s hard to keep feet warm up at the North Pole,

And having the socks, up the chimney he strolled.

He clung to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew, like a ballistic missile:

But I heard him exclaim, in the midst of all blight —

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.