Great Turn Off's Of Our Time (37)

'The Economy is turning a corner'
is a phrase that if people were paid
to have to listen to being trotted out
then the economy really would change.

As it is economies move too slowly
for us to feel them change and our feelings
are what needs to turn the corner, before
the economy drives us clean round the bend.

But more seriously whatever the metaphor
for how we feel about the money we don't have,
but expect in our hand, to buy the future we expect
we can't know the process of purchase in advance.

We are the ones turning the corner
with the money we have in our hands,
where the poor live close to within their means,
but the rich see their wealth as a way to lever debt,
as if debt were the future they can buy now, and pay for 
much later, if ever, because their capital buys them that.