No Day of Reckoning? H.P.B. Jenkins

NO DA Y OF RECKONING? or-DEBT MANAGEMENT IN THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY It was a lazy afternoon Beneath a cloudless sky. Old Kaspar settled in his chair And turned a sleepy eye On Peterkin and Wilhelmine Who watched the his torama screen. They saw a crowd of city folks Within a marble hall; And one, dressed up like Uncle Sam, Who stood against the wall Where papers colored green and white Were stacked beside him left and right. And as the busy, pushing crowd Came past him on the screen, He'd give them papers colored white And they'd give him some green, While helpers worked at keeping track Of changes made in either stack. 153 154 H. P. B. JENKINS "Now tell us what 'twas all about!" Cried little Wilhelmine. "It was a market," Kaspar said, "Where dollars long and green Were traded nearly every day For simple promises to pay." "When Uncle Sam was short of cash From current revenues, He'd stand upon the market floor And sell some IOU's)' And in his youth, so I've been told, He'd pay his IOU's in gold."

"Why doesn't he," asked Peterkin, "Pay debts in gold today?" "The Planners showed him," Kaspar sighed, "A more enlightened way. When faced with bills and debts galore He just goes out and borrows more." Professor Jenkins (deceased) taught Economics at the University of Arkansas. His com'muniques, "with apology to the muse of Robert Southey," appeared regularly in The Freeman from March 1959 through April 1963.