Timeline of Songs about the Economic Crisis (some humorous), from Williambanzai7

I recently discovered Williambanzai7 when I came across his comment to an article on the Seeking Alpha financial information website, "Madoff Hedge Fund: Wall Street's Biggest Ponzi Scheme Yet? " Sean Maher, Seeking Alpha 12/14/08

Williambanzai7's comment consisted of the lyrics to a song about the Bernie Madoff scandal, set to the tune of Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer. It gave me a chuckle, even though it is well past the holiday season. (Williambanzai7 often posts his lyrics as comments in response to on-line articles and blog-posts related to the current economic crisis.)

I checked out his blog, and discovered that most of his posts are lyrics dedicated to the "Great American Subprime Disaster". A few posts relate to the politics of our times. The songs are in lyrical form only. As far as I know, there is no audio.

Here is a solution- KARAOKE. Gather some friends and belt out the tunes while singing Williambanzai7's lyrics! (Your economic woes will disappear, at least for a while.)

SOME OF MY FAVORITES

September 2008
SUBPRIME BAILOUT PROTEST SONG (One, Two, Three What Are We Fighting For? -Joe McDonald)

I AM THE WAMU ("I am the Walrus" -the Beatles)
"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. See how they run like hedge fund bums from a gun, see how they fly. I'm crying."

STUCK IN A MORTGAGE WITH YOU (Stuck in the Middle- Stealer's Wheel)

October 2008
MONEY FOR NOTHING -Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (Money for Nothing - Dire Straits)

I like the following two songs, because you can sing AND dance to them:
LET'S DO THE SUBPRIME WARP AGAIN! (Let's Do the Time Warp - Rocky Horror Picture Show)
BAILOUT THRILLER RETURNS (Thriller- Michael Jackson)

November 2008
THE AIG BALANCE SHEETS (The Adams Family)
BABY CAN YOU BAIL OUR CARS (Baby You Can Drive My Car - the Beatles)
WHERE HAVE ALL THE BAILOUT BUCKS GONE? (Where Have All the Flowers Gone- Pete Seeger)

December 2008
MADOFF, THE WALL STREET FAKER (Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer)
HEDGE FUNDS ROASTING ON AN OPEN FIRE (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)
THE TWELVE WALL STREET DAYS OF CHRISTMAS (The Twelve Days of Christmas)

January 2009
YOU'RE JOHN THAIN (You're so Vain - Carley Simon)
CITIGROUP BITES THE DUST (Another One Bites the Dust- Queen)


"Wall Street: The Musical", anyone?
(Think Mama Mia and Moulin Rouge.)


RELATED
Seeking Alpha
THE WILLIAMBANZAI7 BLOG: The Great American Subprime Disaster

Interactive Economic Graphic from NY Times: Year-over-year change in home prices through August 2008 - data from Standard & Poor's Case-shiller

Thank you Vu Nguyen, Seth Feaster, and Kevin Quealy for the elegant interactive graphic of the change in home prices in 20 cities in the US from January '01 through August '08!

Related:
For more information about housing price changes and finance topics, do a search on the Seeking Alpha website. Also check out Seeking Alpha's Breaking News page, for "real time commentary on the market, with links to key sources".

Seeking Alpha is the child of David Jackson, a former tech research analyst for Morgan Stanley. I plan on spending some time exploring the site. The nice thing about this site is that the articles are arranged a tagged so it is easy to find the information you need. The articles often contain lots of links, so you don't have to waste too much time digging deeper into topics of interest.

Below is a sample of some of the graphics related to US home prices via Seeking Alpha, in no particular order: