Ready to be Poor

Open your books/let’s get down to the lesson
To read a story about/economic transgression
If you wonderin’ the era/no need to be guessin’
The time is the present/the what’s a recession

The why…we don’t really know the why, you see,
But we all about to wind-up in some poverty
Politicians say we’re fine/so why they gotta mask it?
They’ll be payin’ off the debt/in a foreclosed casket.

I ain’t really that worried about bein’ dirt poor
I’ll survive once again just like I did it before
Drop the pen ‘n pad/exit the stage door
Grab my fishnets/I’m back to bein’ Jarky the whore.

(the hook):
So put your hands up if you ain’t got dollars
Puttin’ in full days for blue and white collars
Shovel other people’s shit, wash their Impalas
If you’re an unemployed, underpaid
Fuckin’ Rhodes scholar
And put your hands up if you ready to be poor
Wave good-bye to the house and the grocery store
While your bank account starves into skin and bones
Bob your head up and down just like the Dow Jones

Free market now a free-range target
Powder keg with a short fuse and we sparked it
Stocks in the gutter/beggin’ on Wall Street
To invest in live cattle/when all they got is dead meat.

You’d think after Enron we’d learn
Lehman Brothers is shady
And don’t feed the Bear Sterns

This is for everybody who worked hard for that home
Got tricked by Gordon Gekko and his lies on the phone
And yes I’m upset about the sub-prime buyers
But more in a rage at all the sublime liars

You a lotta the reasons that I got holes in my clothes
Wear shoes on my feet that don’t cover my toes
I know just how cold these winters really feel
Stop steppin’ on my back/get hot off my heels
Sellin’ my wheels/for a weeks worth of meals
F the D’s and the R’s/where’s my new deal?

(the hook)

Truthfully I think the crash might give us a fresh start
To invest in the future—like food, schools, and the arts
I know this maybe hard for most of you kids to believe
Bail-outs the only aces Bush got up his sleeve

All of the other aces gone in unregulated poker
Turnin’ nice guys like me all into the Joker
So now I rob the pockets of every stock-broker
Pour gas on those stacks/light a match
And then smoke’er.

Start breathin’ in the fumes/’til I start feelin’ delirious
Laugh in Greenspan’s face and scream, “WHY SO SERIOUS?”
I’m like Mister Tyler Durden/the anti-hero’s hero
Fight you in the club/ ‘til we all back to zero
Crash credit cards/make Master Card wrecks
Shit, I’ll take another round of those stimulus checks