Cut Back

Cutbacks run deep across the land.
Consultants cut with a diffident hand.

CEOs watch with a confident glee,
Fortunes rise with the fall of each employee.

Please the stockholders is all they do,
Cut costs to show a profit or two.

Outsource operations to foreign lands.
Let cheap labor get the dirty hands.

American know-how and American guile.
Not since robber barons have we seen such style.

Unseen, the lonely underemployed lurk.
Unemployment run out; feeling like a jerk.

Years of education down the drain.
Well earned seniority held with disdain.

Along with the money goes self-esteem,
The car, the family, the American dream.

An undercurrent of despair in a prosperous land.
Can’t you hear their mournful cry so close at hand?

And so I ask you as the new century unfolds,
Have we learned from the past, or are we too old?





Cartoon of a man selling everything.

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Copyright 2005 © Ronald W. Hull

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2/26/05



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