This is really delicious, and should cheer up the grinchiest of Grinches and the scroogiest of Scrooges:

Rumors that Santa Claus may be the latest and most high-profile victim of the worldwide credit crisis sent world stock markets roiling and children's hopes plummeting today as Wall Street analysts warned that Santa's entire production and distribution network could collapse by the end of the day without an infusion of several trillion dollars from the federal government.

Marvelously, the good folks at National Lampoon have already created an hysterical video of Santa asking Congress for bailout funds (embedded below the fold).

But before we get there, Kansas City.com's TV Barn published Alex R. Dahl's satirical piece moments ago:

"We believe the situation is dire and there is real possibility that Santa will be unable to complete gift manufacturing and execute delivery operations this week," Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, said. "He needs an enormous lifeline and he needs it now."

Although Santa has said nothing publicly about the situation, his spokes-elf hinted at some of the causes during a press conference here today. "We are being squeezed like everyone else. Our credit facilities are being restricted just as our suppliers and transportation contractors are demanding quicker payment or even pre-payment," he said.

Read the whole marvelous piece, for it's quite charming and very on the money.

Now, onto our feature film brought to us by National Lampoon (h/t NBer dbo):

Delicious. Absolutely delicious. Thanks, dbo!

*****Update: There is some question about who came up with this idea first. Readers are encouraged to review IowaHawk's "SantaCorp Pleads Case For Bailout" posted December 18.

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters. Follow him at Facebook and Twitter.