Fleeing a Sinking Ship?

Is Banksy trying to tell us something?

In the last week, two huge rodents attributed to the British street artist have sprung up on buildings in SoHo in Manhattan.

Their arrival comes as the economic outlook for the city looks bleaker amid a growing financial crisis.

The bear as the traditional symbol of Wall Street's downfall simply falls short of the reality these days. It is a time of fear and panic in the markets. Financially, it is the year of the plague.

So what better representative of plague than the rat?

The artist has often taken stabs at political and cultural commentary. In February 2007, his work Bombing Middle England sold at Sotheby's auction house in London for roughly $200,000. And early this year, the guerrilla graffiti artist airbrushed Sketch for Essex Road to raise money for Ken Livingstone's unsuccessful re-election campaign for London mayor.

So, are the rodent renderings his take on the current economic crisis? After all, what better symbol of utter death and destruction than the rat? Given the artist's elusiveness, we may never know.

Of course, it is also the Chinese Year of the Rat.

Alfonso Serrano F.

• Lighten Up! Humor Consultants Help in Tough Times
• Lehman Bankruptcy Hits New York Real Estate
• How Much Is Tina Fey Worth, Anyway?
• Credit Crunched: A Special Report on Wall Street Chaos