Bank Holiday Poem: Ozymandias

With apologies to P.B. Shelley....

I met investors from a foreign shore
Who said: "Two trillion dollars we are long.
Until we can deploy them and earn four
Percent, without taking duration risk
'Twould be folly to purchase any more.
Yet when our new-world counterparts we meet,
Reclining for a chat under palm fronds,
Ere we take the slightest moment to greet
Our friends stand and declaim into the air
'My name is Ozymandias, buy my bonds:
Else we shall not import and all despair!'
The proud land's reputation's in decay
From that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
Our investment dollars shall stay away."
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P.B. Shelley
admin
May 25, 2009 at 1:59 PM ×

nice

no apologies necessary

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Anonymous
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May 25, 2009 at 2:02 PM ×

"An idea not to be sneezed at!"

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Anonymous
admin
May 25, 2009 at 7:23 PM ×

Apparently the trips by Obama administration official begging the Chinese to buy Treasuries didn't give them confidence that Treasuries are a bargain.

Perhaps they're calculated the returns from Larry Summers' 2007 advice on behalf of DE Shaw to China's sovereign wealth funds to buy structured real estate securities, and decided buy recommendations from Obama officials are sell signals.

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fodacadillac
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May 25, 2009 at 8:28 PM ×

China's talk of ditching the dollar is odd in the face of no real effort to diversity if massive holdings of foriegn exchange.

Even though, among other things, it has been signing up swap agreements with central banks from Indonesia to Argentina, giving them access to billions of dollars worth of yuan in a crisis, this seems to smack more of political posturing than anything else.

Given most Chinese exporters invoice in American dollars its difficult to see, in the near term anyway, who will want all of those Yuan.

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Casey Stubbs
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May 26, 2009 at 1:05 AM ×

That is truly amazing that you could write such a beautiful poem.

thanks

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But What do I Know?
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May 26, 2009 at 1:24 PM ×

Nice work, MM, even down to a fair imitation of Shelley's tortured scanning.

So far you've done Houseman, Shelley, Conan Doyle, and Keats (?)--are you by chance a 19th century scholar by training?

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Macro Man
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May 26, 2009 at 1:42 PM ×

I can't remember doing Keats...somehow I think Ode on a Grecian Urn doesn't have to much to offer the modern financial poet. I did do William Blake though, which just managed to stay in the 18th century. I'm no literary scholar...just had a liberal arts education and a good memory!

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