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Cindy Perman
News Editor at CNBC.com and the author of The Pony Blog (ponyblog.cnbc.com). She has also written a book, “New York Curiosities,” and does stand-up comedy.
Jane Wells
CNBC business news reporter, based in Los Angeles, covering the defense and technology industries. She writes the CNBC.com blog Funny Business.

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The news can get a little heavy sometimes, with debt crises, vicious markets and crappy earnings reports. So, we dispatched our crack reporters, Cindy Perman and Jane Wells, to find some levity amid all this seriousness. May we offer you a Keynesian cocktail with a side of bacon?

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Apr.21

1:49 PM ET

Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009

Will YouTube Sensation Susan Boyle Save the Global Economy?

Posted By:Cindy Perman

As the world grapples with headlines about troubled loans at Bank of America [BAC Loading... () ], looming bankruptcy at General Motors [GM Loading... () ] and pirates wreaking havoc on the high seas, a lone dove has emerged to save the global economy.

Susan Boyle
Susan Boyle
Never been kissed but these lips will save the global economy.

I am, of course, talking about singing sensation Susan Boyle, who took the world by storm last week with a rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” from the musical “Les Miserables” on the television show “Britain’s Got Talent” that was so powerful, it made grown men cry.

Not since Ford [F Loading... () ] introduced the Model-T in 1908 has the world been so ... ahem ... moved as it was by Boyle — a dowdy, never-been kissed, unemployed 47-year old who lives alone with her cat Pebbles in a small Scottish town — who proved to Simon Cowell and the world that you don’t have to look like Beyonce to sing like an angel.

Video clips of that audition have been viewed more than 85 million times on YouTube [GOOG Loading... () ], which is more than the populations of the U.K., Switzerland and Greece combined, and quite a feat for a woman who, before last week, didn’t even know what YouTube was. Now, she’s got a Wikipedia entry, a Facebook page with 1.4 million fans and a Twitter following.

“An inspiration for World Peace!” one poster commented on YouTube.

“It was definitely a moment when the meek inherited the earth,” another posted on her fan site, susan-boyle.com, said, paraphrasing the Bible.

It is almost Biblical, isn’t it? A virgin emerges from a small village to save the economy.

“I’m gonna make that audience rock!” she says in her thick Scottish accent, wearing a tea-stain colored granny dress, with her contestant number plastered awkwardly across her cleavage.

At first, the crowd jeers.

Boyle rolls her unknown-to-man hips.

Teenage girls roll their eyes. (Yeah, we saw you, eye-rolling girl at 1:24)

The eye roll heard 'round the world.

Then she begins to sing.

And within seconds, they are believers.

And crying like little girls.

Susan Boyle has given people a reason to hope.

A reason to look up from their flaming 401(k) statements.

I dreamed a dream in time gone by

A reason to walk over to their computer and log on to YouTube.com.

When hope was high

A reason to buy Kleenex in bulk at Costco. [COST Loading... () ]

And life worth living

A reason to go to Amazon.com [AMZN Loading... () ] to pre-order her CD.

I dreamed that love would never die—

A reason to pick up a copy of a tabloid, to see what the paparazzi rummaging through her trash — sorry, rubbish — have uncovered. [NWS Loading... () ]

I dreamed that God would be forgiving

A reason to watch the made-for-TV movie about her on Lifetime and expose themselves to millions of dollars in advertising. [DIS Loading... () ]

As she concluded the song and the crowd jumped to its feet cheering, Susan Boyle blew a kiss. A kiss that, like the butterfly that flapped its wings, set in motion a flutter of dollars, pounds, euros and yen that will get this global economy humming again.

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