Thelma and Louise Redux: Satire in Song as We Near the Fiscal Cliff

November 30, 2012 - 4:32am
With barely a month to go before the so-called fiscal cliff, we thought we'd revive a piece from late summer. Our monetary minstrel, Merle Hazard, presents the animated "Fiscal Cliff," in which John Boehner and Harry Reid threaten to go head over heels in a budgetary game of chicken.
by: 

To plagiarize a prior post of mine, this page likes to feature monetary minstrel Jon Shayne, a Nashville investment manager whose nom de croon is Merle Hazard. Merle has written and sung such classics as "H-E-D-G-E", "In the Hamptons", "The Greek Debt Crisis", "Inflation or Deflation?" and "Diamond Jim", several of them "commissioned" by this page. You can access his entire oeuvre from here.

A few months ago, Jon penned a classic-to-be, "Fiscal Cliff," handicapped only in that it contained neither Merle himself nor any moving pictures at all. Back to the drawing board he went. Or rather, back to the drawing board went illustrator Grey Blackwell and animator Matt Emigh. We trust you'll agree that Grey, Matt and Merle have gone the extra mile this time around.

A preview: Monday will feature a brand new post from "Ask Larry," in which our Social Security guru Larry Kotlikoff writes about outliving your savings and what to do if divorced, but have blocked out all the specifics, such as where and when you actually got married.

This entry is cross-posted on the Rundown -- NewsHour's blog of news and insight. Follow @paulsolman

View the Original Article