From the daily archives: Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

Awaiting Your Correspondance – Important Business Matter – The Seminal.

 

Latest McDuck machinations are apparently too much for even the normally obsequious Associated Press to bear:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Less than a week after balking at the Alaska Legislature’s investigation into her alleged abuse of power, Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday indicated she will cooperate with a separate probe run by people she can fire.

The Associated Press: Palin lawyer meets with investigator in probe.

 

A Maureen Dowd column that is both funny and perceptive.  Did I mention that she didn’t write it?

Best line:

… the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.

Op-Ed Columnist – Aaron Sorkin Conjures a Meeting of Obama and Bartlet – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com.

 

I wonder if it works on back taxes…

Have you actually read the bill that Secretary Paulson and his Goldman assistants wrote for Congress? Not the current version (I shudder thinking about it) with all its inserts from financial industry lobbyists, but the first version. It was beautiful in its simplicity and proved that revolutions can be initiated by the stroke of a pen in societies ruled by law — as long as ruling elites supports them.

It got me thinking. I have a mortgage. I still owe a lot on it. People in my neighborhood are in the process of foreclosure. And still others are struggling to pay rents that spiked in the real estate bubble but show no sign of coming down with housing prices.

I decided to use the treasury’s proposal as a template for one that would help me and my neighbors. Paulson’s bill is so user friendly, that it took me only 15 minutes just now to convert it from a bailout for billionaires to a “Homeownership For All” act. See below for the text of my proposal to Congress.

Roll your own bailout — it’s easy!.