Bail This

I have little patience with all the anti-bailout hysteria & all that stupid fake populist bullshit. Almost as little patience as I have with the bailout itself. Those little pieces of green paper we carry in our wallet tend to obscure the truly abstract nature of money. Money is above all an idea. And right now, nobody (but NOBODY) has an idea just what the hell is going on with this thing we call an economy.

Obama's plans for the economy may work, or they may not. He doesn't know; nobody knows.

One thing I do know: if you took the $9.8 trillion set aside for the TARP fund and, instead of giving it to the banks, we gave it to US citizens, each and every one of us would get over $37,000. That's right, $37,000 (actually, if you go by US citizens 18 and over, you're looking at $43,035.42, but who's counting?). Now, I'm sure there's a very good reason that wouldn't work, but I'm more sure that I don't know what that reason would be. It seems to me that all the spending that would create would get the economy rolling. And even if people actually saved or invested it, well, that means it would be going into the banks and brokerages, right? How does that fail?

Like I say, I'm sure that there's a good reason this wouldn't work, but inflation isn't it, so don't bother me with that (as in, I could re-budget for $5 gas if someone were handing me $37,000).

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While I'm at it, that Domino's ad sucks. "My economic bailout plan" my ass. Anytime I hear "bailout" or "main street/wall street" in ads, I want to punch people, then I want to boycott the business running the ad. My only consolation is that the person who wrote that ad is probably unemployed now.

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My Economic Bailout Plan aka In Rotation for Early Spring:

Lou Harrison - Suite No. 2 and Six Sonatas
LaMonte Young - Sarabande
Harry Partch - Two Studies and Barstow
John Cage - Dream and In a Landscape
(the above performed by John Schneider, just & adapted guitars, and Amy Shulman, celtic & concert harp)
Sun City Girls - 330,003 Crossdressers from Beyond the Rig Veda
Doom - Born Like This
Big Star - Third (Sister Lovers)
Pharoah Sanders - Izipho Zam
My Dad is Dead - Shine(r)
Brahms - Ein Deutsche Requiem
Ligeti - Double Concerto for Flute and Oboe, San Francisco Polyphony, String Quartet No. 1, Continuum, Musica Ricercata
This Heat - Deceit
Butthole Surfers - Psychic . . . Powerless . . . Another Man's Sac
The Jam - Sound Affects
The Clash - Sandinista!
Sir Richard Bishop - Polytheistic Fragments
Robert Nighthawk - Live on Maxwell Street
Hound Dog Taylor - Natural Boogie
Son House - Delta Blues
Carcass - Reek of Putrefaction
Verdi - Requiem
Eleventh Dream Day - Prairie School Freakout
Giant Sand - Chore of Enchantment
MC5 - Kick out the Jams
Bolt Thrower - . . . For Victory
Robert Pete Williams - Robert Pete Williams