Payback is Hell....

Here's my recommendation to the U.S. taxpayers who are suddenly being forced to bail out a wayward and poorly managed financial industry to help the world economy avoid an economic depression. For years these bankers have been making poor decisions with their money while engaging in usary practices against their middle-class customers and charging exhorbitant fees on many transactions. Now they come to us, the people, asking not for a loan but for a handout in the amount of $700 Billion. The number is so large, we can't really fathom how big it is.

$700 Billion =

- Ten times what we spend annually on Education
- Twice what we spend annually on National Defense
- 100 times what we spend on the Environment
- Twenty times what we spend on Homeland Security
- Ten times what we spend on infrastructure
- Twenty times what we spend on our veterans

Yet here are these banks with their hands out to us. Could you imagine walking into a bank and telling a manager that you've gambled away all your money and owe more on your assets than they are worth, and, to avoid your own bankruptcy, the bank should just give you that all that money back with no questions asked, no oversight, and no promises of repayment. How would that conversation end?

So here is my recommendation on this bailout. Granted it's unlikely to get much interest from these bankers, but then beggars cannot be choosers, and payback is hell...

Let's loan these banks the $700 Billion using the same terms found on the back of one of their own credit card offers. We will loan it to them interest free for 12 months, at which point we will begin charging them interest anywhere from 6.99% to 10.99%, depending on the quality of their credit at the time. If any of the banks should be late by even ONE DAY for an expected payment, then they will be charged a fee equal to 3% of the remaining balance and their annual interest rate will jump to 24.99%. If they are late on any payment by more than 30 days, the home and cell phone numbers of their chief executive and his staff will be provided to the people who may call them anytime between 7:00 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. to ask where our money is. And we don't have to be nice.