An Open Letter to Henry Paulson

Dear Mr. Paulson,

As I was feverishly digging through the cemeteries this weekend to horde any gold fillings that certain next-of-kin had abandoned in their hastily discarded relative's corpses, I saw that you were proposing bailing out the financial sector with up to $700 billion of taxpayer money. I must say that this is a very gutsy move on your part as you are now leaving the fate of the nation's, if not the world's, economy in the hands of my brethren in the Treasury department, namely people with not enough social skills to make it in the "real" economy and who are merely counting down the days until retirement.

Well, those folks, and a shit load* of consultants.

I mean, your party has advocated since the mid eighties for, as so eloquently articulated by that paragon of neo-conservative intellectualism Grover Norquist*, a government small enough to drown in a bathtub. So, it is refreshing, if you don't mind me saying, that you have so readily embraced a mantra of "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

So, as you folks are obviously new to all this government helping stuff (at least I assume you are, I have yet to find an example to the contrary), I figured I would give you a few economic pointers on where and how to use this money so that it maximizes the benefits to the financial markets:

(1) Invest in printing more money. This one is a no-brainer. I mean, you guys are the friggin' government for God's sake. Just print a couple billion worth of C-notes and walk down Wall Street tossing bags of money into the atria of Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, et al. They'll take that money, pay off their debts and the problem is solved.

(2) My buddy Vince. Vince bet me last week that the Steelers would lose by nine. Sonofabitch was right on the money and I lost 50 big ones. This guy is so good at gambling; he wins nearly half the time. So, if you want a really sound investment, give the money to Vince and he'll double it.

(3) Zimbabwe. I hear that the current exchange rate is like 1,000,000 Zimbabwean whatevers to $1. That's awesome! Think about it for a second: with $700 billion dollars we could become Zimbabwean Quadrillionaires. No one has ever been a Quadrillionaire before so think of what that would do in terms of our financial standing in the world. I guarantee that we would even probably make the Forbes Wealthiest list, bumping off that know-it-all Warren Buffet.

(4) The Internet. My understanding is that this whole Internet thing is going to be big. Like really, really big. Bigger than Prime Time Gameshows big. We should definitely give these guys some money to build transistors or something.

(5) Porn. Seriously, I can't think of anything else that holds up as well during turbulent economic times. Perhaps you could see if Ben Bernake will do a Donkey Show?

Well, those are my solutions. I'm sure there are "intellectual" ideas like buying up mortgages at a discount and give people new fixed rate mortgages, using the FDIC (the folks who take over failed banks) to take over failed mutual and money market funds, declaring a national emergency (with judicial review) or expanding the social safety net. Those things, however, won't demonstrate the power and shear awesomeness of a Republican lead government program. Those are small minds for people that don't believe in un-regulation and don't want to see $700 Billion pissed away.

Good luck Mr. Paulson, and godspeed.

Sincerely,
O
The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat

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*Or as they call it on Wall Street: a bovine-equine hay derivative.
** Another form of bovine-equine hay derivatives.