Billion Dollar Handouts and How to Streamline the Process

If you’ve ever applied for a loan (or mortgage, or even a new credit card) of any kind, you can probably bring on a headache just remembering how you had to pore through page after page after page of legalese gibberish in tiny print. And your hand probably starts to hurt when you remember the jillions of places you had to put your signature or initials.

Now — wanna apply for one of those multi-billion dollar Wall Street giveaways that Congress has been handing out? Just fill out this Fast and E-Z two-page form, sign your name, and Presto! Those taxpayer chumps are just champing at the bit to give you a few more billion dollars of their money.

This application form is, of course, only available if you’re already a multi-millionaire whose only job skill is playing with Other People’s Money. If you work for a living and/or if you actually need this money to pay your medical bills or keep your house — buzz off, peon. Bootstraps!

But let’s say you’ve already made a fortune on Wall Street by shitting all over Main Street, and now you’re sitting there thinking “Two vacation homes, one yacht — this just doesn’t cut it. Heelllp meee!!!”

The taxpayers are at your service.

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Alabama), of the House Financial Services Committee, said: “When student lenders and mortgage companies ask more questions in lending thousands of dollars than the federal government does when it injects billions of dollars worth of capital, we should all be concerned.”

Ya think?

A congressman asked Neel Kashkari — the director of the Treasury office that oversees the bailout program — whether banks had to present a business plan that explained why they needed this bailout money, what they were going to do with it and how they were going to pull themselves up out of the hole they’d dug themselves into.

Kashkari’s answer was: “Not specifically. It's very hard for us to try to micromanage and say this is how you should run your business, because each bank and each community is a little bit different.”

Aww, a Compassionate Conservative.

cross-posted at Bring It On!