by Derek Morrison, 7 June 2009
The poetry/song inclinations of this posting is a bit unusual for Auricle but there are connections with both Higher Education and the digital zeitgeist. In one of my other lives I’m a closet folky albeit one who plays the guitar badly and sings even more terribly but, arguably, I’m a little better as a lyricist.
So the genesis for this posting arose from listening to Radio Scotland’s Archie Fisher featuring the Centre for Political Song(CPS) in his Travelling Folk programme some months ago. The Centre for Political Song is one of the research collections hosted by Glasgow Caledonian University. One of the songs in that particular edition of Travelling Folk was Bob Dylan’s 1963 Masters of War, a superb polemic for the time. I liked the vibrant rawness of the then angry young man highlighting what he perceived to be cynicism, incompetence, and exploitation. I wondered, however, what would happen if such a Dylanesk cadence was applied to another context, i.e. that of the near (hopefully) collapse of the global financial system.
What’s this got to do with HE and technology? First, I’ve already mentioned the Centre for Political Song and they will include my humble effort below in their collection. Second, the second verse includes “treating our world like digital bits in a game” and my thinking there was about the “quants” who have did so much to automate financial processes to create derivatives so complex that even the “masters of finance” (nee universe) no longer understood them, e.g. Was Software Responsible for the Financial Crisis? (Guardian, 16 October 2008). Third, the consequences of this financial upheaval will eventually be visited upon many aspects of UK Higher Education sector, no matter what government is in power. How this will manifest will be uncertain, but manifest it will.
So ladies and gentlemen I now offer you Masters of Finance a modern polemic. It’s dedicated to the victims everywhere of those human enterprises, institutions and systems which have been found so wanting (and those yet to be found to be so) in large part due to hubristic self-serving leaderships who nevertheless usually escape the pain they inflict on others.
You can read this as a poem or sing it as a song, but for best effect do it with passion. If you do use it please attribute the source and at least offer me a description of the venue/event and maybe even a link to your usage. Let me know as a comment to this posting. For the guitarists out there, in the spirit of Dylan’s 1963 classic I use DADGBE tuning and variations of Dm, D5, and D (add 9). The 6th string strum provides a suitably ominous base beat to the melody.
Come all you Masters of Finance
Of derivatives fame
That built the ghost funds
That built the debt bombs
You who owned banks
Who played the money ball
We just want you to know
We now see through it all
You fiscal thought leaders
Much wealth did you claim
You treat our world like …
Digital bits in a game
You promise a home in our hands
But then you run from our cries
As the debt mountain rises
And the value then fries
You Gods of Sub-Prime
Who feign to receive
Markets only grow
You would have us believe
But we now see through your lies
It was all for vain
All we thought we had
Has run down the drain
You set up the debt levers
So that others would hire
And you sat back and watched
As dreams burned in the fire
You retired to your castle
As each nation’s wealth
Burst forth from the bubble
Built so much in stealth
In your quest for obscene profits
The risks have unfurled
Now we fear to invest
What we have left in this world
By threatening our people
And causing such pains
We don’t what it is that
Flows through your veins
But what do we know
To speak so out of turn
You might say we’re bitter
You might say we’ll burn
But one thing we know
Because we’re not one of you
Even Mammon decided
To disown what you do
And so it’s now time for some questions
Was that bonus worthwhile?
Did we share in your windfall?
Or is that not your style?
And what of your Hedge Fund?
Did that meet your need?
Did your selling short gamble?
Get you back on your steed?
And did your claim for expenses
Also treat us like fools?
Did clearing the moat around your castle
Meet with the rules?
Was your status really so special?
As you became embroiled in the mess
Did your pathetic excuses
Play well with the press?
So you false Masters of Finance
You false Gods of Sub-Prime
You purveyors of toxic assets
Have now had your time
And when the grim reaper calls
And you’re served with his writ
Explain your part to Beelzebub
As you slowly roast on his spit!
Postscript
To help orientate non-UK audiences the penultimate verse was written with the 2009 scandal relating to the claim for allowances/expenses by UK Parliamentarians in mind. Believe it or not, one claim was actually for clearing a moat; another was for a floating duck island.
