WHY Not pay burglars?

l.t. Dravis

WALL STREET/WASHINGTON, D.C. – Monday, September 22, 2008 – Don’t mean to be nosy, but how much did you make last year?

Did you pull in anything close to $400,000.00?

Why do I ask?

Because that’s the amount of money John McCain wants to take out of our pockets to pay each CEO of each Wall Street firm as part of the $700 billion (or more) Wall Street bailout.

If I could interview Senator McCain, I’d open with, “Come on, Senator McCain . . . on your idea to compensate Wall Street senior executives as part of the bailout . . . you can’t be serious!

“You’re talking about giving $400 grand to each of the same people who caused the Wall Street crisis!

“This is nearly as unbelievable as the statement you made a week ago today when you told us that the fundamentals of the economy were good - barely about 24 hours before the Wall Street meltdown!

“Senator McCain . . . if you sincerely believe that taxpayers should spend up to $400,000.00 per person to reward or pay-off or support the people who brought down Wall Street, I wonder, would you advocate that victims pay burglars for their creativity, time, and efforts?

“Though you’ve tried to distance yourself from George W. Bush, you’re obviously in lockstep with the Bush administration’s press release today that criticizes any plan to limit compensation for those inept, greedy executives.

“Do you have any idea how much in bonuses these people paid themselves in just the past year?

“If you’re not up to speed on this, Senator, permit me to tell you that ABC News reported that CEOs employed by Bear Sterns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley paid themselves nearly $40 billion in ‘bonuses’ last year.

“And the $40 billion in bonuses these people paid themselves came out of the nearly $75 billion lost by shareholders in those companies in 2007.

“Do you think these same CEOs spent the $40 billion they collected last year and now need another $400,000.00 to tide them over until they can get jobs with the Department of Treasury as ‘consultants’ hired to tell the government how to ‘manage’ billions of dollars worth of worthless securities?

“Now, it isn’t like I’m making any of this up . . . I’m simply reacting to your words at a campaign stop today when you said, My friends, the top executives are asking for two and a half billion dollars in bonuses after they ran the company into the ground! The senior executives of any firm that’s bailed out by the treasury should not be making more money than the highest paid government official. We should have that criteria (sic).

“Since the highest paid government official is George W. Bush and we taxpayers pay him $400,000.00 a year to do whatever he does, it is reasonable to deduce that that is the compensation package you want to hand over to a bunch of inept Wall Street bigwigs.

“Thank you, Senator McCain, but no thanks. We can’t afford to waste our hard-earned or, in this case, our hard-borrowed money, on a bunch of losers, but most of all, we can’t afford to have a man in the presidency who is so willing to throw good taxpayer money after bad.”

To taxpayers, I would say, “This is a bad deal . . . don’t let McCain get away with it. The group who brought down Wall Street should go home, without applause, without notice, and most of all, without taxpayer money in their back pockets. Contact your Representatives and Senators – today – and tell them you don’t buy the McCain's idea to bailout disgraced Wall Street senior executives!”

To burglars, I would say, “Take heart . . . if John McCain becomes President, his kind of ‘change’ could mean a bright future for you.”

And, to you dear reader, I ask, “What do you think?”

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

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