"Nowadays, you can't turn on the TV without some talking head telling you about the economy. Yet, in a world overrun by 'analysts,' only one man has the guts, the brains, and, quite frankly, the poetry to put it all in perspective.That man is Michael Silverstein... Silverstein is a true intellectual." — Gersh Kuntzman, The New York Post

"Few people have found much to laugh about in the stock market this year. Michael Silverstein is the exception. The Bard of the Bourse can find humor in losing money, globalization and stock options." — USA Today

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About Silverstein's Verse

 

Analysts were shocked, Shocked! to learn that many companies have been padding their balance sheets for years by counting stock market gains in employee pension funds as earnings. And now that the stock market is off its record highs, these companies will have to meet pension obligations themselves. The following verse chronicles this situation--and its consequences.

The Pension Fund Fandango

In days gone by a worker’s pension
Was thought of as a pay extension
A sinecure for long years’ toil
A thank you nod for staying loyal.

Pensions were just another expense
Like ‘lectric bills and building rents
‘Bout pension costs you didn’t pine
You wrote them off your bottom line.

But then a maven in accounting
Seeing corp’rate losses mounting
Devised a way that pension drainings
Could be converted into earnings.

His plan (a triumph of conception)
Required no overt deception
To turn a drain into a prize
Just think that stocks would always rise!

While pension funding contributions
Were less then these funds’distributions
A credit posting you could enter
From your pension profit center.

This cunning trick worked like a charm
And seemed to do no real harm
Past workers got their promised money
Weak bottom lines were made more sunny.

Then ‘lo, there came that moment tragic
When burned out markets stopped their magic
Battered pension funds stopped giving
Retired workers kept on living.

Now pension funds won’t bail out
A firm that’s lost its sales clout
Farewell to slick bookkeeping dodges
With money that belongs to codgers.

**********

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