Archive
09/02/08 - (2)
Developing the County
Ten or twelve years ago, As rapaciously as a plague of locusts, They infested the remaining cornfields just west of the city —
The tribes, societies, armies of overcapitalized land developers, Who began trucking in their track loaders, scrapers, backhoes, Grading, digging, pouring, sawing, hoisting, hammering,
More or less helter-skelter, hit and miss, hither, thither, and yon, In what they were calling "planned communities," "subdivisions," Naming them Such and Such Estates, Big Buck Acres, Heaven.
And they went about their antlike colonizing, annexations, Selling their oversize spec homes, spec castles, spec fortresses To unvetted buyers with questionable profiles, pedigrees,
Who could get don't-ask-don't-tell adjustable-rate mortgages From gluttonous, commission-crazy loan czars Certain they'd always be able to collect regular payments —
A reasonable-enough assumption, In a Sutter's Mill, sky's-the-limit real-estate boom, With Wall Street's ability to convert fool's gold into bullion billions.
And all went swimmingly, with borrowers and lenders, Who kept inflating the ever-expanding building bubble, Until, one day, about a year ago, it exploded in their faces.
And then, to everyone's colossal dismay, disgrace, disarray, Those enormous edifices, dotting every hill and vale in the county, Contracted not in size but ownership,
Reverting back to the hemorrhaging title holders of record, In one vast, en masse bloodletting of ignominious foreclosures, Occasioned by good old-fashioned blatant irresponsibility —
The inevitable consequence of irrational exuberance, Greed abetted by mortgage Shylocks eager to bundle debt And pass millions of hot potatoes along, to myopic investors.
These days, when I drive out into the county, I see that one out of every five McMansions is abandoned — "For Sale" signs shouting to no one at all —
And all I can do is shake my head, in I-told-you-so disgust, Remembering asking myself, not long after the ants invaded, Where all the money was coming from,
How many Forbes CEO's of how many Fortune 500 companies Could possibly have decided to settle in this neck of the Midwest, Invest in those colossal, senatorial Palatine Hill villas,
When, all along, I knew, damn good and damn well, That this part of the boonies wasn't Beverly Hills or Nob Hill But a metastasizing Neverland carved out of heartland cornfields,
Populated by overpaid factotum-nobodies going nowhere, On their fast tracks toward foreclosure's merciless nevermore. Perhaps, soon, I'll see corn sprouting again, far as the eye can see,
Through the manicured, sprinkler-systemed gardens, tennis courts, Swimming pools, five-car garages, multi-gabled roofs, Overshadowing America's red-white-and-blue "For Sale" flags.
09/02/08 - (2)
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