Okay, I am still steamed. This whole mess is a sad, dirty joke being perpetrated upon the American people. Here are a few more thoughts.

So Congress put a limit on executive salaries. This is supposed to make me feel better? If I had run my company into the ground, I would not encounter a pay ceiling, I would be out of a job. Come, on, America, these are the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, we are talking about: the crème de la crème, the elite. Look, I’m a relatively bright individual—I have a college degree and a law degree (whoopee, for all that’s worth). But even I have a hard time really understanding derivatives and so forth . . . and it turns out that these geniuses didn’t really understand them either, apparently. (I am being nice, and not claiming they are out and out crooks.)

Lots of Americans—in particular, people with retirement funds—relied on these geniuses to understand all these sophisticated security products, things that us poor benighted fools were too ignorant to bend our minds around. America trusted a bunch of self-aggrandizing politicians and Harvard MBA’s and Wharton grads to protect and invest their money wisely, even conservatively. But no, they are just too smart for the rest of us. And now we’re bailing out these jerks, letting them keep their jobs . . . and trusting them again with $700 billion more! Gosh, there’s no limit to how stupid we are! Burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, . . . ?

It turns out they were all weaving The Emperor’s New Clothes. Then they turned around and sold them to pensioners, China, Europe, anyone who had a buck. If I had raided my grandmother’s pension, I would be in jail, but the silver-spoon set are running around scot free and getting more money from you and me.

So, what, instead of making $2 million plus, these executives are making $250,000? Don’t kid yourself. I bet it’s not even that low. And are they working somewhere on the Jersey turnpike now, or do they still have swank offices in downtown Manhattan? Expense accounts? First Class airfare? All the nitwits in Congress think that is perfectly reasonable, since they all belong to the same Big Bucks Club. You see, Congressmen and Senators are Masters of the Universe, too. They don’t seem to realize that you and I meet all our families’ expenses at less than half these amounts. But then, we’re just ignorant peons.

These people should get zilch: if they can still afford to eat and keep their homes in the Hamptons or the penthouse on Central Park West, they should get nothing. Their entire compensation packages should be tied to performance. Note to the wary: if you don’t vote your stock proxy according to who owns the biggest piece of the stock pie, you are a fool. Executive fortunes should ride with yours.

And while I am at it: the same is true with all the members of Congress. Heck, make it the whole federal payroll. They should not make a cent unless it is from a budget surplus. Then you might see them be a little more responsible about spending our tax dollars—the way you and I have to be responsible about our own family budgets. In fact, let’s do it department by department, agency by agency: compensation comes out of what they saved from the budget. Then, instead of budgets growing every year, they would shrink, because suddenly everyone would work their asses off being more effective and more efficient, and they would cut the dead weight.

Oh, and thank you, Congress, for revising the bailout bill to increase the amount of federal deposit insurance to $250,000. That sure was a deal breaker. You see, the idea is that this gives people much more confidence in the banking system. Yeah, okay, so when the bank goes bust . . . oh, I get it. You and I, as taxpayers, now get to pay out to people who had a quarter mill in the failed bank. THANK YOU, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Never mind that neither I nor anyone else I know has even $100,000 (the former limit) in a bank account anyway . . . I would be happy to insure the wealthy!

HOW STUPID ARE WE? The only source of revenue for the feds to insure these funds is you and me, the taxpayers. Here’s another idea: for every bank that fails, the very first place we should go to for insured funds is the pockets of the Senators and Congressmen who voted for this moronic piece of legislation.

Oh, and that federal deposit insurance sure makes those banks accountable . . . yes, sir . . . now, when they screw up, they don’t even have to pay the piper. You and I do. Why not force insurance onto the private sector? Like lawyers who obtain malpractice insurance. If banks are run well and conservatively, then a private insurer would be happy to collect a hefty premium to cover depositor’s insurance, and the bank has an incentive to run itself well to keep its premiums down. And we can be sure that the insurer would audit the you-know-what out of that bank. And if the bank has no insurance: well, they need to disclose that to depositors, and all bets are off. (Sure . . . yeah, I’d bank there.)

But no, we have a smarter idea. Let the taxpayers insure the depositors, no matter how lousy and lavishly a bank is run and no matter how foolishly they risk depositors’ assets, and trust the government to watch out for our interests by providing adequate oversight for these institutions. Yeah . . . that works for me. Duhhhhhh.

WAKE UP! Yes, the world is in a terrible credit crisis, but this piece of garbage legislation was rammed through by people who don’t know what they are doing. This is the definition of insanity: people who do the same thing over and over and expect different results. I know . . . let’s give a lot more money to the same people who failed before, because THIS time, they’ll get it right. And that trust is based on . . . what, again? I kind of missed that.

These government big wigs and Wall Street whizzes really do think they are the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. But I suppose if we were stupid enough to elect the one lot and give our money to the other, maybe they are, because we are so foolish that we gave them our money once, we are giving it to them again, and we still let them take more of our money from us. For whom are we working? I thought the 13th Amendment outlawed involuntary servitude. Hmmm. Must be mistaken.

And let’s all get our minds around that number, America: $700 billion. If you had spent $2 million every day since the year of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 . . . you would ALMOST have spent $700 billion by now! (You would only have 16 more years left to spend $2 million a day.) Ponder that, America.

It’s time for some leadership. Anyone? Anyone? Because it is not going to come from our next president. They believe that the government not only can, but will, save us. And anyone who really believes that is a certifiable idiot.

Related articles by Zemanta

• No Bailouts for Jobless or Homeless
• Bush appeals to Congress to reverse bail-out rejection
• ‘Wanted: Bank failure specialist.’ Pays $156K

No related posts.