Bard Billot on the nation's banker
Golden Kiwi
It had been hard times for the serfs. For long seasons they toiled in obscurity. The plague ravaged them, and their mud hovels cost a million shekels; now the usurers and moneylenders raised interest rates on their crushing debts to a startling figure none could count on their fingers. So the Serfs selected a delegation from their number and sent them to Queens Landing. They arrived in the fresh clear air of dawn, and went straight to the Palace. The Red Empress came out to the balcony and waved; and said, "Let them eat kindness" and pulled down the shutters. Across the Town Square, from the penthouse suite of the twelve story Castle of Koru, Baron Luxon waved to the serfs too. And the Baron shouteth down to the serfs, "Get back home and get your kids down the mines you slovenly plebs! No excuses!" So the delegates trudged along the boulevards and came to the Reserve Bank. Here Soothsayers read the entrails of chickens and foresaw whether next year would bring feast or famine. "O Sorcerers," begged the weary serfs, "Why cannot we afford a crust of hard bread?" And Head Necromancer Adrian replied "Lo, the fault lies not in the stars, muddy serfs! It lies in your inflationary expenditure and hefty wages. YOU are to blame!" One of the young serfs went pale and protesteth to the Witchdoctors: "I have been working in the fields all year to pay for my million shekel mud hovel!" And the Economic Wizards glared and replieth "Lo, you are working too much! Stop working and stop buying stuff!" The young serf was most vexed and pressed on. "Sirs, just this last season I was without work. I worked not! Then the merchants told me I was a lazy bludging oaf!" Adrian and his Prestidigitators turned back to their prognostications, and shook their learned heads; for how could a simple clod like this grasp the nuanced complexities of chicken entrails? Thus the hour grew late in Queens Landing, and the delegation of serfs grew tired; for they were used to early starts and wailing babes in the small hours. They slowly wandered through the dusky streets back to their mean quarters, but as they passed by the fine emporiums and parfumeries and lawyers and money lenders, they heard merry sounds of carousing and good cheer. And there behind the steamy glass windows of a select restaurant, they saw a grand Christmas Party taking place, and the serfs counted: Nine corporate economists with hot takes, eight CEOs demanding cheap overseas labour, seven public sector managers in tinsel elf hats, six jolly bankers from ANZ with Sir John Key, five talk radio blowhards listening to their own voice, four Opposition members tucking into turkey, three Ministers slugging back the Shiraz, two Party Leaders throwing cutlery, a Reserve Bank Pharisee in a pear tree: and not one soul amongst them seemed to be concerned about the effect on inflation.
Victor Billot has previously felt moved to compose Odes for such luminaries as the Prime Minister, Wayne Brown, Bishop Brian,
