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FTX & Other Damn Scams

If you want to make some money
Dangle golden dreams like honey
And then claim that you can turn dross into gold.
When you claim the future’s sunny
Don’t let on you think it’s funny
That you don’t believe a thing that they’ve been told.

Then with promise of big buck-ers
Take some money from rich suckers
And create a “sure-fire-winner” Ponzi scheme.
Then with fellow feather pluckers
Turn the rich to “out-of-luckers”
When you scrape the money off the top like cream.

Cryptocurrency’s the means
To an end, or so it seems,
When investors trade their money for illusion.
But when nightmares eat their dreams
You can hear the losers’ screams
When they find out that their hopes were a delusion.

Such a scam is nothing new,
Politicians do it too,
When they spend our money and get richer for it.
As our nation’s debits grew
No one worried, for they knew
That the press and FBI would both ignore it.

P.T. Barnum gave it name
When he laughed and made the claim
That another would-be sucker’s born each minute.
For there’s no one else to blame
When we find, while playing the game,
That it’s harder to get out of it than in it.

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James A. Tweedie is a retired pastor living in Long Beach, Washington. He has written and published six novels, one collection of short stories, and three collections of poetry including Mostly Sonnets, all with Dunecrest Press. His poems have been published nationally and internationally in The Lyric, Poetry Salzburg (Austria) Review, California Quarterly, Asses of Parnassus, Lighten Up Online, Better than Starbucks, Dwell Time, Light, Deronda Review, The Road Not Taken, Fevers of the Mind, Sparks of Calliope, Dancing Poetry, WestWard Quarterly, Society of Classical Poets, and The Chained Muse. He was honored with being chosen as the winner of the 2021 SCP International Poetry Competition.

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8 Responses

  1. Joseph S. Salemi

    Has anyone examined the background of that little scumbag Sam Bankman-Fried? His parents were professors of law at a major university, his social and educational milieu has always been elitist, he has worked at high-level Wall Street firms, his political donations have been massive to left-liberal Democrats and a few RINO Republicans, and he is a vegan who spouts all the usual woke and environmentalist cliches.

    Would you not say that he is a living biopsy slide of our mandarin-class oppressors?

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      SBF and Caroline Ellison are certainly products of the elite class, but my gut feeling is that they’re front-people for a larger, more organised scam going on behind the scenes. If they weren’t working for others they’d both be in handcuffs by now but it seems no one in power is even curious as to where they even are.

      Reply
  3. Mike Bryant

    Great poem! I think Whatfinger might pick it up. I think it’s funny though that crypto is taking all the blame here. They say follow the money. It turns out that Ukraine was one of the biggest investors in FTX. Also, it turns out that 20 Billion of the funds sent to Ukraine by our government (our tax money) is missing. It also turns out that Bankman Fried sent millions to Democrats running in the mid-terms all over the country.
    You have to give the devil his due, Democrats are losing much of the dead vote, what with reforms, but the rich of both parties, and anyone paying taxes are getting soaked, by the machinations of the Hawks, the Biden administration, the WEF, the three letter spook and law agencies, and the Soros NGOs.
    Money makes the world go round… OUR money.
    FTX is just the gun… our would be rulers are the thieves pulling the trigger.

    Reply
  4. Phil S. Rogers

    Excellent! There is so much more to your poem then just FTX. Political and economic corruption, among world elites claiming it is all for the good of mankind. Ponzi schemes, hidden political donations, money laundering and by both political parties. Mike said it all.

    Reply
  5. Laura Lesinski

    Truly, excellent poem! I loved it. The messages as well as the prose. It flows so nicely, never missing a beat or chance to be humorous. Nicely done.

    Reply
  6. Paul Freeman

    A Ponzi scheme sprang up in Zimbabwe while I was there, sucking in many people who could least afford to be on the losing side of such a scam. It was sad to watch and be unable to persuade my friends and colleagues they were being cheated – such is the hope of a manufactured miracle to the needy.

    I wonder how they dealt with Nigerian princes.

    Thanks for the read, James.

    Reply
  7. Mia

    I really like this poem. It is like a song. I keep imagining someone on stage, with a top hat and cane performing it. To make such serious topics so amusing, that is seriously good.

    Reply

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