Bill Shien on The Banks Bailout.

A Few Modest Proposals
by Bill Shein Here’s the only deal Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner should offer America’s banks and financial-services companies: You can have more taxpayer money from the ever-expanding bailout fund, but some of it must be used to pay down the outstanding credit card debt of all Americans.
I’m not kidding. Right now our tax dollars are the only thing holding up these otherwise insolvent businesses. According to Bloomberg News, we’ve already put up $9.7 trillion. That includes all the bailout funds, Federal Reserve programs, bad-debt guarantees, special tax treatment of bank acquisitions, inappropriate bonuses, fancy office redecorations, weekend junkets, private jets, and free puppies for the kids of Wall Street CEOs.
Why? So these firms can, as soon as possible, get back to the lucrative business of charging us outrageous fees and usurious interest rates? Are we insane?
Since it’s our money, why not count the bailout payments against Americans’ $1 trillion in credit card debt? It would be an effective stimulus, too: With less personal debt to service, we’ll get back to consuming stuff. That will create jobs and restore what Wall Street experts tell us is a “healthy,” growing economy.
Of course, my proposal is dead-on-arrival. In fact, it’s dead-before-arrival. But don’t worry: I have another idea.
As a warm-and-fuzzy “thank you” to the financial-services industry for sticking it to us for years and then leading us into this mess, let’s band together and stop paying our credit card bills. You heard me: Just stop. Throw away the bills without opening them. Delete the e-mails. Crumple any letters titled “Notice of a Change in Terms” and burn those hilariously phony “Your Privacy is Important to Us” inserts.
I know what you’re thinking: “If I miss payments, my credit score will go down, and it will be hard to get credit in the future.”
That's the beauty of my plan. See, if everyone stops paying, all of our credit scores will decline. In order to make loans and make money, the banks would be forced to adjust downward what’s considered a good credit score. Relatively speaking, nothing would be different, except that an “excellent” credit score would now be 420 instead of 770.
Modesty prevents me from claiming that this is a totally brilliant idea. But I know what you’re thinking: This is a totally brilliant idea.
It’s also largely risk-free. If, as some suggest, the modern financial system is history, credit scores won’t matter anymore. We’ll finally begin the long-overdue shift to sustainable, locally based economies. We’ll stop borrowing money to pay for junk we don’t really want or need. We’ll work less and enjoy life more. The planet-destroying insanity will end.
Of course, in another scenario – a return to some kind of pre-industrial lifestyle – we definitely won’t need a good credit score to survive:- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
None of Bill Shein’s phone calls to the Treasury Department’s “New Idea Hotline” have been returned.


Reason Gone Mad -- A Humor Column by Bill Shein -- Award-Winning Humor and Commentary

Norm

That is what this whole 'stinking thing' is about in my opinion.

'Saving' those who have been irresponsible from all of their recklessness, and allowing those who have managed their finances responsibly take it in the shorts! Is something wrong with this picture?

Oh, by the way, I need a new car and a remodeled bathroom Mr. President

I think all bailout are bad, this will give us a high inflation in the very near future.