Cash for Clunkers--A Poem

A man losses his job.
Nobody has money
to buy what he makes.
And, he has no money
to buy what they make.

Who has the money?
Has it blown away,
leaving many destitute?
Have our factories rusted,
leaving labor no machines?

If it takes money
to make things,
then let’s make
more of it.

Can’t do that, old sages say.
We must suffer for past excesses.
But, those suffering
are not those who
made silly paper.

Can do it, new voices say.
If banks only want to play at the casino,
let the government write numbers
after the names of the homeless,
Joe the plumber and Sarah the unemployed.

Only blind superstition stops it.
We won’t be the first civilization
to worship old gods while
they perished from the earth.