The Crimson Permanent Assurance

This is fairly obscure, I suppose, but the current financial turmoil makes me think of “The Crimson Permanent Assurance,” the short feature that comes before “Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.” The premise is that an English insurance firm has been taken over by a Giant American corporation. The workers rebel and turn their modest old building into a pirate ship. In particular, the present financial carnage makes me think of this:

NARRATOR: And so, heartened by their initial success…
the desperate and reasonably violent men of the Permanent Assurance…
battled on, until…
as the sun set slowly in the west…
the outstanding returns on their bold business venture became apparent.
Once-proud financial giants lay in ruins…
their assets stripped…
their policies in tatters.

CAPTAIN: Full speed ahead, Mr. Cohen!

ALL: [Singing] Up, up, up your premium
Scribble away and balance the books
Scribble away, but balance the books
It’s fun to charter an accountant
And sail the wide accountancy
To find, explore the funds offshore
And skirt the shoals of bankruptcy
It can be manly in insurance
We’ll up your premium semi-annually
It’s all tax-deductible We’re fairly incorruptible
Sailing on the wide accountancy

NARRATOR: And so, they sailed off into the ledgers of history…
one by one, the financial capitals of the world…
crumbling under the might of their business acumen.
Or so it would have been…
if certain modern theories concerning the shape of the world…
had not proved to be disastrously wrong.

Here is the video: