Sell! Sell! Sell!

24 September 2008 | 11:38 AM

As someone who routinely spends 20% more than he makes, I am hardly in any position to be criticizing anyone about their financial choices, let alone The Man. So when The Decider’s minions announced late last week that they intend to buy back all of the bad debt from America’s largest lending houses and insurers, I mostly just shrugged and thought, “OK, well if those puppies collapse we’re going to be in even more dire straits, so lets just rip off the band-aid, get this over with and get back to blowing money on the things that really matter in life.”

But then I heard that the $700 billion price tag is a completely arbitrary figure, seeing as how the banks get to make up whatever value they want for the assets they’ve lost, and nobody actually knows what they’re worth. And then came the news that the FBI is investigating most of the likely buyout recipients for fraud. Add that to the ludicrous compensation packages many executives of these institutions are walking away with, and I’m starting to get a sick feeling about this. Sure, Chris Dodd’s got a plan that will force many of these lenders to negotiate with strapped homeowners so they can stay in their homes, but that seems like it’d be small solace given the bailout we’d be providing in return.

In any case, the bailout might very well still need to happen – I’m not in any position to argue with it. I will say, though, that what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander. To wit, let me direct your attention to BuyMyShitPile.com, a site which gently encourages Treasury Secretary Paulson to let the rest of us in on this fire sale while the cash is flowing like Cristal at a strip club when Pacman Jones is in the place.

Needless to say, I’ll be going through all of my unpacked boxes, looking for stuff I can use to pad my kids’ college funds.  Make it rain, Hank: make it fucking rain.

Posted by Andy in Politcally Incoherent