John F. McCullagh (09/28/1954 / Flushing)

To buy, or not to buy: That is the Question.

Whether it is better in the end to suffer

The moods and whims of some outrageous landlord

Or take A.R.M.S. against your future earnings

And end up owning something? In hock, for years;



Pay rent? And by paying rent to say we end

The heart ache and the thousand natural shocks

Home ownership is heir to. Reduced Consumption?

No Politician’s wish! To rent? To lease?

To lease, perchance to own? Ay, that’s a thought

For in the grip of debt you’re paying bills

Till you have shuffled off this mortal coil



It gives one pause. That’s the aspect

That makes calamity of adjusting rates

For who would bear the years and years of debt

Fine dining now reduced to happy meals,

Buyers remorse, and the long delays.

The Questionable title and the risk

Your credit rating doesn’t rate the loan.

When you yourself know if you lose your job

You’ll end up sleeping in your S.U.V.





To grunt and sweat under a heavy load

Under the threat of something worse than debt

The forced short sale, from which, once closed

No equity returns. It puzzles the will.

And makes us rather bear such debts we have

And, if necessary, refinance them still.



Compounding thus make cowards of us all.

And so our youthful promise and ambition

Is hobbled by the weight of student loans

made by lenders judged too big to fail.

In this regard the risk is very real

We lose the house to auction.




(a parody of Hamlet Act 3, Scene one) A shameless rip off of William Shakespeare by John F. McCullagh