Dear Congresspeople and Executypes:
Maybe I need to put up all the money I ever earned and ever will earn so that the "markets" can be kept "liquid." But here are the conditions:
(1) I won't bail out shareholders who made a bad bet. When I make a bad bet, I pay. If the company the shareholders own is worth zero, then zero is what they should get.
(2) I won't bail out executives who made bad judgments--even if the bad judgment was to join a failing company. If you must fire some executive who has been making in the millions or tens of millions or hundreds of millions, give him a $25,000 going-away present and tell him that it will feed a family of five for a year. In fact, it will.
(3) I won't bail anyone out until you explain one thing to me. You say that this crisis is caused by people not paying their mortgages. If we give the lenders a lot of money, they will have a lot of money, and the people not paying their mortgages will lose their houses. If we give the people not paying their mortgages a lot of money, and tell him to pay their mortgages, then the lenders will have a lot of money, but the people will still have their houses. Before I give you all my money, please explain to me why the second alternative is not better than the first.
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