You thought you were an alchemist
Turn base metal into gold
How else can you explain away
All those derivatives you sold
It's hard to pay big dividends
When earnings are so low
So how come all those spvs
Those off balance sheet entities
Could hope to make their investments grow?


you had a scheme so elaborate
3 thousand affiliates
all those figures to titivate
risk profiles to insulate

dot coms to incubate
politicians to ingratiate
markets to deregulate
that was something to celebrate

accountants to obfuscate
friendly bankers to collaborate
clever lawyers to cooperate
Arthur Anderson to incinerate

But power can intoxicate
can lead to greed which then titillates
the temptation to overstate
to slightly exaggerate

When first you practice to deceive
It creates such complications
Sometimes it even makes you break out
Into beads of perspiration
To keep those balls all in the air's
a feat of prestidigitation
it all gets so confusing
are you winning - or losing?
Can you even do the calculation?

if you fail to anticipate
that bubbles disintegrate
You'll soon have to fabricate
to crassly manipulate

when losses accumulate
your share price deteriorates
and you cant repudiate
all those obligations to compensate

no time to procrastinate
or even prevaricate
what can you authenticate?
Is there anything to mitigate?

then it starts to accelerate
its too awful to contemplate
they abandon you to your fate
you'll just have to capitulate


VERSE 3

How could it all have gone so wrong
What is the explanation?
Maybe you knew it all along
It didn't take much imagination
To see that it was bound to end
In total annihilation
If you depend on high gearing
And financial engineering
You'll wind up in administration

CHORUS 3

they're bound to investigate
to heartlessly interrogate
and then start to litigate
god help you when they adjudicate

there's so much that incriminates
you'll never obliterate
the audit trail that elucidates
all the evidence that implicates

they may even incarcerate
I can almost commiserate
You're situation is desperate
This is bigger than Watergate


Your language is so intemperate
I think you're starting to hyperventilate
there's no need to gesticulate
you're getting into such a state

VERSE 4

but all those swaps and options
were just so off the wall
it really was a certainty
that you were bound to fall
I think when all is said and done
What we can take away
Is that law and regulation
Can't prevent such machinations
but the markets will have their say

© Helen Parry October 2002