OK, we are in a pickle. Yes, we need regulations and oversight to prevent this pickle from happening again. But we also need to dig our way out of this jam.

The solution:

First, we don’t need to spend $700 billion, because we should not think of reimbursing the idiots whose greed and stupidity caused the whole mess.

Our only concern should be to shore up the financial structure in order to:

1. Enable those who are capable of paying their home mortgages to continue to do so;

2. Create a loan/mortgage market that functions in the future; and

3. Protect the retirees and working class whose IRAs or retirement nest eggs are at risk, not through fault of their own, but because their futures were compromised by idiotically bad decisions made by the folks running those investment firms.

For the folks who were in charge – NO BAILOUT. Let them go broke. Better still, send them to jail.

For the wealthy speculators who traded paper back and forth in an ever-escalating orgy of greed and excess – NO BAILOUT. Go get a real job. Stop being blood-sucking parasites and try doing something productive for a change.

But for small-time investors who were used and abused by The Big Boys, I think most of us recognize the wisdom of taking steps to avoid seeing hard-working, contributing Americans lose their retirement savings.

So let’s just suppose the actual amount needed (once the Fat Cats, Pirates, Crooks and Exploiters have been cut loose without two pennies to rub together) is only $350 billion (only!).

Who should pay? Well, to start with, Secretary of Treasury Paulson (whose PERSONAL net worth equals $500,000,000) should pay. Either the guy is a crook who was in on the shenanigans, or (at best) he is an idiot who never saw this slow-motion train-wreck coming, even though warnings were shouted from the rooftops by economic experts for years now.

There are thousands of people whose assets equal Paulson’s in this country, and most of them multiplied their net worth many times over by exploiting the mortgage industry. And THERE you have it. Those are the folks who should be paying.

And don’t worry, there is no conflict in the idea of cutting the mortgage/investment Robber Barons off without another penny, and simultaneously expecting them to pay for the bailout with their own personal assets – those Big Boys have been socking away profits by the hundreds of millions for many years, now. THEY HAVE THE MONEY. Don’t believe anyone who tries to con you into believing they don’t. What was lost during the past few months is just a dip in the barrel. Those crooks have been siphoning off the cream into Swiss Bank Accounts for years.

All it takes is 700 people with personal assets worth as much as those of our Secretary of the Treasury. 700 Paulsons x 500 Million in personal assets = $350 billion.

No one expects people like Paulson to offer more than half their assets, no matter how patriotic they may be. Half the assets would do. (Would Paulson and his ilk be able to survive on a mere $250 million each? I think so. All it takes is a little tightening of the belt. Suck it up, Paulson – we know you want to do it for your country. You know, the country you LET DOWN with your unbelievably inept incompetence. That country.)

Are there 700 people worth as much as Paulson? Oh, yeah. The past eight years have been very, very lucrative for crooks, pirates and robber barons. Eleven thousand households have annual incomes exceeding $5,500,000. The 400 highest taxpayers in the nation have gross annual household incomes exceeding $87,000,000 (household incomes for this group have risen more dramatically than for any other group).

So, $350 billion divided among the Paulsons of the USA is not only fair, but it’s quite doable. And quite painless, so far as the other 99.9 percent of Americans goes.

So there you have it – problem solved. And this patriot won’t even charge Congress a consulting fee.

JD Baxter enjoys sustainable farming in Upper Lake, and is willing to give pro-bono financial advice to Congress any time they need it (i.e., often).

{mos_sb_discuss:4}

Details

Written by: JD Baxter

Published: 05 October 2008