My fellow Americans. I come to you tonight just a few minutes before W is set to come on the air to make the case to America for his unprecedented bailout of the financial sector. His request for 700 billion dollars to buy up bad mortgage debt nation-wide has been the hot topic all week. Rightfully so. Americans are furious at the thought of our nation going much more deeply into debt to bail out the sector that keeps so many of them in debt. Rightfully so.

The original plan, a paltry 3 pages long, has been met with much criticism for the sweeping power that it gives to Paulson and Bernake, and for the complete lack of oversight. The banks put Joe Bag-O'doughnuts through the ringer and sign a ream of paper to get one of their sub-prime loans. And we tax payers are supposed to just hand over the money to bail them out?!

Like I said, this plan has drawn much criticism. Oversight, transparency, restrictions on CEO pay.... blah, blah, blah. Here is what they all have missed (Congress, I hope you are reading this):


Why should our government pass this plan? Why spend so much on a plan that bails out banks - not homeowners? That right. Americans will still lose their homes. Foreclosures will continue. This plan effectively places all of the onus on Barb and Bobby Sodapop and lets the mortgage holders off of the hook. Couldn't this money just as easily pay off the loans and benefit both parties?

No no. We're just going to skip over Tom and Suzie BigMac and give this money to Wall Street. Wait. There is the other problem! Why on Earth would we just GIVE it to them? Give?! Give? No! They should pay. The tables are finally turned - the banks are the ones over a barrel. Why wouldn't we LOAN them the money? Why not give them a taste of their own medicine?

As the Mrs. and I discussed this over dinner tonight, with the NBC Nightly News on in the background, we realized what this really is.

It's the worlds largest debt consolidation loan. Only no-one is talking about making them pay it back.

No, no - those fat profits couldn't come back to the ones who bailed them out. Why would we ask for that?!

The Mrs. also had a great point - since the banks are such a credit risk (obviously have not been handling money well), they'd be looking at quite the hefty interest rate. Obviously that risk model they've been using works so well on us. Seems it should apply to the banks as well. If they are getting my tax dollars, then I expect it to be returned and to collect interest.

25%? 29.99%? 36% fixed*? What interest rate do you think we should charge the banks?