Avery Shenfeld is a senior economist at CIBC Capital Markets and most mornings sends out a note in good, old plain economic-ese to explain away the latest bit of data that has come across his desktop. Not so today. Today, Avery throws off those prose shackles and drops the following delightful bon-bon in our morning e-mail:
The Cat in the Hat
By Avery Shenfeld
The sun did not shine
All our stocks had gone down
So Sally and I
Could just sit there and frown
We’d dumped corporate bonds
And our equities too
But with bills yielding zero
Didn’t know what to do
“Have no fear, have no fear,” said the Cat in the Hat
“Go invest, go and lend, do not sit there and carp
Sure there’s rain in the forecast, a slump and all that
But you can play here quite dry being under my TARP”
But Sally and I we remained very wary
After Lehman’s demise made even banks all too scary
And it was all too odd that the man sent to save them
Had a name that said he just preferred to Cash-Carry
Then our fish said “Look, Look”
And our fish shook with fear
“You’d better start saving, a recession is near
Oh the things it will bump
Oh the things it will hit
I do not like it
Not one little bit”
Then the cat ran out
And then fast as a fox
The Cat in the Hat
Came back in with a box
Said the Cat
“In this box are two things
I will show to you now
You will like these two things”
Said the Cat with a bow
“This first thing, Thing One
Is a printing machine
It prints money to play with
It’s Ben’s little dream
If you’ve lost too much money, then borrow and spend
The Ben’s Fed’ral Reserve is quite ready to lend
He will charge you no interest, trade good bonds for bad
Help pay off your mortgage, so you don’t look so sad.
I call this Thing Two the John Maynard Keynes
It takes trillions of dollars and spends when it rains
On sewers and bridges and other fine toys
And even a bonus for car sector boys”
Then the Keynes ran upstairs
Where he met our mouse Stephen
Who initially said he would try to get even
“I’ll match his spending with cuts” he told all in the House
But soon that thing Keynes had control of our mouse
Then those things ran about
With big bumps, jumps and kicks
As our house filled with money
And with mortar and bricks
And those things from the box
They did bump up our stocks
Then the Cat picked up
All the things that were down
He picked up our funds rate
He picked up our rebate
He picked up the prices for gas in the town.
And he put them away
Then he said “that is that”
And then he was gone
With a tip of his hat