Since Alex Robson introduced the economic haiku, and Ken Parish has a joke section, I thought I might as well reveal my hidden past as a folk singer/songwriter (with that Ned Kelly beard, who would have guessed it?).
Here’s a song I wrote in the 80s. Then as now, a lot of sharp operators in business were finding ways to dodge taxes and other debts. The lurk du jour was the ‘bottom of the harbour’ scheme, an asset-stripping operation in which debts were dumped into a bogus company with ‘straw man’ directors. The company records were then literally dumped, most famously at the bottom of Sydney Harbour. It’s to the tune of “Fiddler’s Green”, one of a large family of folk songs of which Australia’s favorite example is ‘The Dying Stockman’. In the original, Fiddler’s Green is where fishermen go if they don’t go to hell.

Bottom of the Harbour

As I was a-walking by the stock exchange door
I heared the rich businessmen all crying poor
My taxes are high and I can’t bear to pay
So it’s time to go cruising on Botany Bay

Chorus:
Take me down to the bottom of the harbour
No more on the board I’ll be seen
I’m going to relax, mates, and live off your backs, mates
And I’ll see you someday on Fiddlers Green

Now Fiddlers Green is a place I’ve heard tell
Where businessmen go if they don’t go to jail
There’s no tax to pay and there’s no work to do
Cos you’re bludging off people much worse off than you

Chorus

You lie round the pool and you sit in the sun
Then sip on your port when the long day is done
The company cars and the meals are all free
And the workers are down just where they ought to be

Chorus

I don’t want to work for a living, not me
So I’ll just go out cruising the wide open sea
My files and records to the bottom I’ll tip
Then claim a deduction for the cost of this trip

Chorus

Tune: Fiddlers’ Green