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How do you feel about the story of the Grasshoper and the Ant being rewritten?

September 26, 2008 12:00 AM An Old Story The Mother of All Bailouts is a rerun. By Michelle Malkin . The time is ripe for a revised 2008 edition of “The Ant and the Grasshopper:” In a meadow on a hot summer’s day, a Grasshopper was chirping and carousing his time away. He watched scornfully as an Ant nearby struggled to store up large kernels of food and build a secure nest. The Ant pulled overtime shifts to pay off his loans and accumulate retirement funds for the future. “Give it a rest,” the Grasshopper said. “Why bother saving and slaving and toiling and moiling? Let’s party!” The Ant demurred: “I am planning ahead for winter, and you should do the same.” The Grasshopper blew off the Ant, squandered his supplies the rest of the season and abandoned his home while on vacation (paid for by tapping every last cent of his home equity gain) instead of holding down a job. When winter came, the Grasshopper’s pantry was empty, and his shelter ruined from neglect. The Ant, weary from planting, harvesting, and stocking up for months, was dining comfortably in his nest. Cold, hungry, jobless, facing foreclosure and up to his two pairs of eyeballs in debt, the Grasshopper limped to the Association of Community Winged Insects for Rescue Now and demanded recourse. The office was swamped with thousands just like him. ACWIRN immediately put the Grasshopper to work registering dead ants as new voters. Funded with tax dollars from the rest of the meadow’s residents, ACWIRN organized mass protests at the Bank of Antamerica, ambushed its top officials at their private homes, harassed their children and demanded that the meadow’s politicians halt all foreclosures (“We must keep Grasshoppers in their houses!”) and outlaw discriminatory lending practices against starving, homeless Grasshoppers (“Well-stocked shelters are basic insect rights!”) The banking industry capitulated; the Orthoptera Lobby secured hundreds of millions of dollars in housing earmarks, grants and counseling subsidies to support the Grasshoppers with the shadiest credit and employment histories. Antie Mae, the meadow’s government-backed home lending giant, fueled the push for increased insect homeownership in the name of biodiversity. Its executives cooked the books and headed for the hills. Katie Cricket and the Mainstream Meadow Media joined the grievance-for-profit circus, profiling Grasshopper sob stories and drumming up ratings as bewildered Ants wondered who was looking out for them. The banks drowned in toxic debt. More Grasshoppers fell behind on their mortgage payments. Bailout mania and panic gripped the meadow. Our little Ant, minding his own business, heard a knock on his door one late winter night a year later. It was his old, sneering Grasshopper neighbor. The Grasshopper had been hired by the meadow as a tax collector. “I’m here to take your provisions,” the Grasshopper cackled. But it was the Ant who had the last laugh. “I’ve learned my lesson,” he told his shiftless friend. “Why bother saving and slaving and toiling and moiling? I’ve spent all my savings. I’m walking away from my mortgage. Thrift is for suckers,” the Ant said as he headed out the door, leaving the Grasshopper empty-handed.

Public Comments

1. The old version had a point to be made. I don't see any point to this new one unless it's supposed to be a political one.
2. right not those of us ants that did this but in the later part of our years we have switched our assets to areas that hold value like farm land that is free and clear or cds in fdic banks or govt bonds and of course a certain amount of hard cash and no short term debt -- we are still setting petty!!! in fact my total growth last month on assets was over 11K!!
3. Cute,,, and then along came the Rooster, and ate them both, so who is better off?
4. And who says greed isn't a great way of life...
5. What about the ant that paid off his humble abode, and now can not sell it as all those grasshoppers houses are in foreclosure. He must take a loss if he sells it at today's market price. There goes his retirement income. Or he can try to wait it out and see if prices start to go back up anytime in the near future. Meanwhile he will continue to scrap out his meager existence and live on what ever savings he may have accumulated over the years and hope it lasts and that he himself does not end up on the street. As he did the right thing all along, and did not break any laws, and lived within his means
6. I always preferred the version written in French by Jean de La Fontaine.