Enough! No More Bailouts

I’m sick of it. I manage my money. What debt I have I pay off…I’m never late. I read the contracts I sign. So, why is it that time-after-time I have to help bailout both scammers and the taken? Enough! When do I get something back?

Today’s headlines say that President Bush and Treasury Secretary Paulson are presenting a plan that will cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars [Update: $700 billion] in order to bailout the banks that are being hit by home mortgage grift. The president is also asking Congress for expanded powers to enact the plan. WHAT?!? The rooster who let the hen house fall down ’round his ears is now asking to be put in charge of handling the eggs? Seriously? He’s got a pair, that one…I’ll give him that.

What I want to know is where is the pain from the CEOs and Boards of these “prestigious” financial institutions? How many are losing most of their outrageous salaries? How many have to abandon their stock options for the good of the company? I suspect that if I have to count their numbers on one hand I’ll have five fingers too many.

Don’t get me wrong…I want the government to help out the people when life deals them a sucky blow. Public assistance is a very necessary item for a compassionate nation. But what if people aren’t victims of circumstance, but their own greed and/or stupidity (yes, I used the “S” word)? Why should I have to bail them out again? The savings and loan crap in the 80s was enough.

I’ve been saying for decades that the people who gleefully think that there is a free lunch, that they can get something for nothing, that they can simply use money to make money…these were the real threats to our nation. They built for us a house of cards, and now that the house came tumbling down, they want us to give them new decks.

You want to bailout someone? Bailout me. Clearly I’m the shmuck in all of this. The huge debt I carried after graduating college? I paid it instead of declaring bankruptcy. My bills? Pay them. I don’t buy stuff I can’t afford other than housing and cars…and even then I don’t exceed what I can afford. I will never retire because I can’t (sucks being at the tail end of the baby boom generation). I get by. And now I have to help pay for stupidity. Gah!

So here’s the deal: you want to bailout these companies? Fine. Do it. But guarantee me a living Social Security benefit and free healthcare for the rest of my life. If you can afford a few hundred billion to save the scurvy dogs that created this mess in the first place, then you can give me a measly million dollars to give me solace in my dotage.

O, say does that Star Spangled
Banner yet wave,
For the land of the rich,
and the home of the connected.

To EVERYONE in the executive and legislative branches of our government: each and every one of you needs to get your shit together, and the time to do it is now (actually, it was eight years ago…but that circus has already pulled up stakes leaving nothing but a big ol’ pile of elephant poop). Harry Truman had a saying on his desk in the Oval Office: “The buck stops here.” Apparently with president “W”, it’s more of a starting point. It’s time to elect serious people who understand what money means to the vast seething majority of us who don’t have much of it.