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Jolly Banker, song by Woody Guthrie

You can see an interesting similarity between the onset of the Great Depression and the Great Recession, and what happened after the onset. In both cases, financial fraud brought calamity to many people. Banks failed due to their own recklessness and negligence. They did not keep faith with their customers.

Then institutions – who owned mortgages after the initial crisis – foreclosed ruthlessly on its victims, people who could not pay due to calamities financial institutions had wrought. Jolly bankers could say, we may have inflated our assets to get you to invest, but now the cat is out, and no one trusts anything we do. Thus, “We will take your homes. They may not be worth a lot, but you have not lived up to the terms of your contract. I’m so sorry.”

Whether you call the panic a recession or a depression, financiers and their enablers play investors and borrowers, then slay both groups with equal abandon. The U. S. Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank stand behind us. If you want to know why suicide rates remain so high, why drug overdoses mount week after week, why so many turn for hope to a person like Donald Trump, look for roots in the Great Recession. You cannot hold bankers solely responsible for these phenomena, of course, but the Great Recession might be called the Great Disorientation: a time when people and communities lost their sense of purpose.

We have not taken the measure of this social and economic disaster. It started twelve years ago, yet its effects lasted far beyond its supposed end in 2009, when economists and statisticians declared it over.

Ten years ago, funds allocated from the U. S. Treasury for the Troubled Assets Relief Program flowed to banks to keep them afloat.

Jolly Banker

My name is Tom Cranker and I’m a jolly banker,
I’m a jolly banker, jolly banker am I.
I safeguard the farmers and widows and orphans,
Singin’ I’m a jolly banker, jolly banker am I.

When dust storms are sailing, and crops they are failing,
I’m a jolly banker, Jolly banker am I.
I check up your shortage and bring down your mortgage,
Singin’ I’m a jolly banker, jolly banker am I.

When money you’re needing, and mouths you are feeding,
I’m a jolly banker, jolly banker am I.
I’ll plaster your home with a furniture loan,
Singin’ I’m a jolly banker, jolly banker am I.

If you show me you need it, I’ll let you have credit,
I’m a jolly banker, jolly banker am I.
Just bring me back two for the one I lend you,
Singin’ I’m a jolly banker, jolly banker am I.

When the bugs get your cotton, the times they are rotten,
I’m a jolly banker, jolly banker am I.
I’ll come down and help you, I’ll rake you and scalp you,
Singin’ I’m a jolly banker jolly banker am I.

When the landlords abuse you, or sadly misuse you,
I’m a jolly banker, Jolly banker am I.
I’ll send down the police chief to keep you from mischief,
Singin’ I’m a jolly banker, jolly banker am I.