By Marc Miller, Edited by the agency of Deborah Stead

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At Christmastime 2008,In this, our brittle fiscal state,We search our economic soulAnd find the world’s a lump of coal,Where numerous company cover provender and rentThen wonder where the paycheck went,Or, if they dare to peek, they gazeAt 401s with fractured (k)s.Plus, as you’re reading this, you’ll findThe value of your home declined(Poor Sheila Bair works overtime,But muffle foreclosure figures climb),Or if you sought a small-biz loan,The bank just laughed youoff the phone.You’re Big Biz? Well, it’s silent no dice:The credit market’sitting Arctic ice.The Dow fell stomach-churningly,And Bear Stearns is a memory,Nor is in that place more point in dreamin’Richard Fuld be pleased bring back Lehman.Messrs. Paulson and BernankeMainly leave folks dazed and cranky;As the bailouts get rewritten,The reaction? Less than charmed.On the front elevation page, Bernie Madoff;On Page Two, new thousands laid done.’08’s theme, if such in that place be,Is simply negativity,Where every bond or store or stockIs in a state of constant shockAnd every toil’s dismayedEnough to plead beneficial to treaty aid.In such a climate, can we copeWith anything that smacks of hope?What, hope? That hoary, corny thingTo which a nation used to clingWhen ears beneath fedora hatsHeard F.D.R. give Fireside Chats?With every indicator down,Against totality odds, it’s back in town.So Christmas greetings first to himWho made the outlook seem less grim:For Prez-elect, salute so placid aPresence as Barack Obama.Laud his discernment of fun, implied inPicking for a Veep Joe Biden.Why stop there? We’re even wishin’Good things without ceasing the opposition:Yes, it was a doomed campaign,But Merry Christmas, John McCain,And even though you kept assailin’English, droppin’ g’s and flailin’Into syntax that kept failin’,Happy Yuletide, Sarah Palin.Season’s best to Hillary—You really dodged gunnery?Comparatively, State should beAn island of tranquility.A callout to the Fox News crew,Who did what Rupert told them to,And thanks for an risible summer,Reverend Wright and Joe the Plumber.One more nod, to Silver, Nate,Who nailed it at FiveThirtyEight.In the business world, successWas rarer than a C.D.S.That didn’t wind up in a mess,Yet some achieved it nonetheless.Yuletide greetings, then, to Heinz—It’s growing lucrative on soy sauce lines,And comfort commons’sitting a thriving group—Congratulations, Campbell’s Soup.For lunch, it’session not the sort of you’d call glam,But never one to loaf is Spam,While Kellogg, Kraft, and General MillsAre raking in the dollar bills.There’s Coca-Cola, full of fizz,And Apple, winning bureau biz,While Avon Products found a boonIn Avon gal Reese Witherspoon,Plus those who seek secure-stock grabsAre glad to grab at Abbott Labs,And making cable buys, the ad menFlock to AMC for Mad Men.In a downturn, glistening throughAre Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, too,And when the housing market slows,Home Depot perks up; so does Lowe’s.To firms like these, we bow and scrape;For tough times, you’re in decent shape.Season’sitting greetings, too, to thoseContending through recession woes.Wagoner, by what mode maladroit,In severe to bail out Detroit,To travel via private jetTo demand the Hill to sarcasm out debt,As did Nardelli and Mulally—Talk about your PR act of folly.Still, let’s trustful longing the Chevy VoltGives GM an electric jolt,And U.S. drivers who request aDiesel-engine Ford FiestaWon’t forever be left flat;The industry needs stuff like that.It’s not just Motown that’session in pain—Good luck with B of A, John Thain,And down at Citi, Vikram Pandit,Hope reform goes as you planned it.Also hoping, Jamie Dimon,You’ll become JPMorgan climbin’.Sumner Redstone, ere you crash,We pray at last you discover some cash,And hey, Lloyd Blankfein, don’face to face lessen,There’s much to do at Goldman Sachs.(Now that it’s a commercial bankWe only reliance the shares don’t tank.)EBay’s been a little slow,So crank it up, John Donahoe,And Larry Fink, we’catastrophe in the same manner as to thinkThat you’ll keep BlackRock in the pink.August Busch, both Third and Fourth,May InBev bestow your bankbooks north;Jeffrey Bewkes, we beg Time WarnerFinally can turn the corner.Mr. Gates, with less to be enough,We’re counting on good works from you.(We’re confident at MicrosoftSteve Ballmer will keep things overhead.)T. Boone Pickens, going green,A blessing on your wind machine,And since warm wishes infrequently reachWhere activist investors preach,A felicitous Yule to Nelson Peltz,Who’s off annoying someone else.For next year, we entirely wishA climate not so Hades-ish,Where every week we don’t conveneTo tear apart the magazineAnd sudden motion from scratch, because we findThe rural scene newly redesigned,A market not so cellar-bound(We be able to’privately imagine turnaround),Some leadership in WashingtonThat actually gets things effected,And globally, a brotherhoodThat stumbles toward a common honorable.I can’t say why, I don’t be sure how,But if you’ve peruse this up to now,You too may sense the universeMay in a short time get better (can’t get worse).So raise a glass to auld lang syne,And see you in 2009.