Bail Out for Bail Outs

Wall Street got their bailout. Today Bush gave GM and Chrystler their auto bailout. AIG got one, and there was the big housing bailout too. And now, Jumpin Jebus, there's talk of a Bernie Madoff bailout?! How soon until the revolution begins?

A $13.4 billion loan package for General Motors and Chrysler will exhaust the last of the $350 billion Congress granted the Treasury for bailout measures. The measure comes even though polls show most people don't believe the auto industry deserves saving.

Me neither.

The relentless rain of billion-dollar headlines, writedowns and recovery plans, toxic assets and bankrupted investors, has worn out our financial sympathies. Already, the sight of Detroit's chiefs flying in their private jets to beg Congress for money to pay the UAW. How many more bailouts can my pocket take? Nay, how many bailouts can my grandkids take? I don't have grandkids, or great grandkids - but this responsibility will be theirs.

We need a bigger fix — and a better metaphor. A bailout, by definition is a temporary measure; water keeps flooding in. At some point, you have to patch the leaks. Or abandon ship.

The Madoff Potsie Scheme

And about that Madoff's ponzi scheme... It would have been difficult for SEC investigators to uncover--unless they listened to Harry Markopolos, who repeated proved to them that it was mathematically impossible that Madoff was getting the returns he claimed--9 years ago... (link)

But now we'll be bailing these idiots out too? Let me remind you that it cost 10 million to ante in to this ponzi scheme. That's just to play. Now you want me to bail you out too?

The 'Bernie Madoff Robs Everyone and Alienates His Family' story is kind of similar to that of the Bluth family from the TV show Arrested Development. Only, the real life version has a laugh track. See Bernie married into or bought off the SEC. (Something like that.) Bernie just coasted in his swindle because he knew the 'regulators' would be asleep at the switch. No one is even sure if Bernie even put people's money in the market - so who even really knows what he did with the money?

I'll ask again, why do we need more regulation when we already have all these rules and agencies? They aren't doing their job now - so we need MORE of these idiots to not do their jobs? I'm just not following? Maybe one of our readers can draw me a picture?

My One Consolation

The one thing I have, other than the useless paper that used to be my life savings is laughing my ass off at the rich fuggers who are now poor.

In the Daily Beast, Alexandra Penney, a NY artist who lost her money in Madoff's Ponzi scheme, tells us what it's like.

I began to think about my options: I’d have to sell the cottage in West Palm Beach immediately. I’d need to lay off Yolanda. I could cancel the newspaper subscriptions and read everything online. I only needed a cellphone. I’d have to stop taking taxis. And who could highlight my hair for almost no money? And how hard was it to give yourself a really good pedicure?

The horror. She adds she's been driven to this horrible indignity:

Yesterday, I took my first subway in 30 years. Dennis came with me to show me how to get a MetroCard. The world looks very different from a crowded Lexington Avenue number 6 train.

Meanwhile, a stunning Reuters article reports that Hamptons vacation homes may have to be rented out this year. Some are even selling at a loss, if they can sell at all. The horror... the horror...

If we're lucky, they'll all just be eaten by the homeless.