"This is America" he shouts, referring to the floor at the Chicago Board of Trade, and all the traders shout back about how they don't want to pay for their neighbor's mortgage, and hey, "Cuba used to have mansions," and now they all drive '54 Chevys! We are becoming Cuba, what with this crazy plan to allow people to renegotiate mortgages instead of declaring bankruptcy.

How the hell did we come a point where a former financial executive speaking from a trading floor pretends to be a raging populist little man fighting against the powers-that-be? The powers-that-be, in this case, are people who can't afford their homes. They are getting a sweet hand-out from the government: renegotiated mortgages on homes that are losing value anyway!

Drudge is really excited about this clip because it shows the real America's populist anger toward Barack Obama's plan to help 9 million homeowners, it is not at all a crazy mob of the least sympathetic people in the country.

(Also on Drudge: high school government class discussion cited as criticism of Obama policies!)

Here are the lyrics:

On a Sunday morn sat a maid forlorn
With her sweetheart by her side,
Through the windowpane, she looked at the rain,
"We must stay home, Joe," she cried.
"There's a picnic, too, at the old Point View,
It's a shame it rained today."
Then the boy drew near, kissed away each tear,
And she heard him softly say:
"Wait till the sun shines, Nellie,
When the clouds go drifting by,
We will be happy, Nellie,
Don't you sigh.
Down Lover's Lane we'll wander,
Sweethearts you and I.
Wait till the sun shines, Nellie,
Bye and bye."
"How I long," she sighed, "for a trolley ride
Just to show my brand new gown."
Then she gazed on high with a gladsome cry
For the sun came shining down.
And she looked so sweet on the big front seat
As the car sped on its way,
And she whispered low,
"Say you're all right, Joe,
You just won my heart today."

Isn't that sweet? Better than stock photos of sad floor traders, anyway. Make sure to use "gladsome" with your loved ones this week.

[Ratings are on a 1-10 scale—with 10 being the best—and are based on how much the media person or outlet has benefited from the crisis, how right they've been, and how much influence they've had.]

WINNERS

• Paul Krugman, NYT: Yea, he just won the Nobel Prize, okay? [10]
• Robert Thomson, WSJ: Thomson led the WSJ's recent redesign and re-imagination—which proved perfect for the big, scary headlines necessary over the last month. [9]
• Joe Nocera, NYT, and Bethany McLean, Fortune: Scored roughly a million-dollar deal to write the "definitive" book about the crisis. These two are certainly qualified to do it, but still—lucky bastards. [9]
• Maria Bartiromo, CNBC: The Money Honey is still the public face of CNBC, which owned this crisis top to bottom. [8]
• Lionel Barber, FT: Editor of the paper that's been consistently serious enough for long enough not to make anyone wonder about its political motives when the crisis went down. [8]
• Andrew Ross Sorkin, NYT: Wunderkind M&A reporter and Dealbook chief who is just everywhere. He got a shitload of money for a book. [8]
• Steve Liesman, CNBC: Senior economic reporter, and a man who's been getting way more face time with Wall Street big shots lately than their wives have. [8]
• John Gapper, FT: Chief business commentator at the solid pink paper, he's been admirably hard on the villains. [7]
• Charlie Rose, PBS: Landed a big interview with Warren Buffett—the last investor anybody trusts. [7]
• John Carney, Clusterstock: He left Dealbreaker in the midst of all this as possibly the most visible young, bloggin', new media name who actually knows what the hell is going on. [7]
• Felix Salmon, Portfolio: He's one of the better finance bloggers and has managed to stay on top of the crisis consistently, when not working on 12,000 word analyses of the Gawker pay structure. [6]
• Daniel Gross, Newsweek: Maybe smartest of all, plans a "quickie electronic book" to be published before the end of the year. Do less work, get out first, heyo! [6]

LOSERS

• Fox Business Network: Yes, the little network finally got a measurable audience because of the crisis, and yes, they go to throw some decent shots at Jim Cramer. But the comparison to CNBC just makes them look bad. [4]
• Charlie Gasparino, CNBC: Got a lot of airtime as a talking head, which is good for him. Was working on a book about reckless leaders at Wall Street firms like Bear Stearns before Bear Stearns collapsed, which could mean a lot of pain in the ass rewriting. Comes off as a bit of wingnut by trying to pin the whole meltdown on Obama. [4]
• Andrea Mitchell, NBC: Trying to report while being married to Alan Greenspan, one of the guys most responsible for this whole thing. Ha. Time to retire, maybe? [3]
• Book Publishers: Who's going to buy all these books? [2]
• Jim Cramer, CNBC: Gave intermittently terrible advice, then made it worse when he tried to correct it. Overly emotional, which is not the thing people want in a money manager. See a roundup of his whole weird year here. [1]

But some traders say the emotional troubles run deeper than money. "When traders read about massive bonuses, the leveraged buyouts and the millions of dollars changing hands, it just compounds their depression," says an alarmed Lasher.

Laid-Off Traders Are Now Shrink-Rapt [NYP]

Earlier: 'Times' Still Concerned About Not-So-Obscenely Wealthy