Can I have a Bailout too??

Well not really, unlike the federal government, I know how to manage my finances, don’t borrow more than I can afford, properly vet where I am borrowing from; consider the paying myself first a rule, and have savings in anticipation of what could happen. Unlike the Federal government, I am a single person, which means, I only have my income, and I would never ever dream of asking my parents for money! Not the Feds, they seem to think they can borrow from the very folks who provide them with their income in the first place!! That is like receiving an allowance, spending too much and then going back to your parents for a 20 year advance. Actually, it may be more like borrowing money from your children’s accounts, but you don’t have children yet.

Here is my feminist thought on yesterday and today’s hearings. Wouldn’t this all be different if there was at least one woman at the table and more than a few on the Financial Services House Committee, 13 of the 69 members is women, about 5%*. To date there has never been a female Secretary of Treasury or Chairperson of the Federal Reserve Bank. Women are typically the CFO’s of their families, and very conscious of the fluctuation of the market, where they shop not Wall Street. The actual market can be a better indicator of exactly what is happening in the country and world financially. I believe a woman would have raised the red flag many, many months ago. I think the collapse of Bear Stearns, should have really put us into a panic, but most of Wall Street and the feds just kept their heads in the sand. The other big difference between men and women, we would be much quicker to hold people accountable and make clear the deadlines, requirements, and potential consequences.

Hello Wall Street and CEO’s you are all taking a big time out! I have a friend who after her daughter is finished with her time-out she gives her a hug. The time out is not meant to make her children feel bad, but to understand that if they act-out, don’t follow the rules, they need to think about what they did to get into a Time-Out in the first place. Well the citizens are not MAD, the government is not MAD, I am sure when we are on the other side of this crisis we will be able to have hugged-it-out. But Wall Street and their leaders need to seriously think about what they did in first place to financially bring this country to its knees, and what plans they have to make sure it does not happen again.

Another close friend, a Marine Pilot, also uses the time-out philosophy to explain to his young children why daddy needs to travel to another country for extended periods of time. There are bad people that need to be put into Time-Out. This comment is not meant to start a conversation of the wars overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan, just an example of using the time-out philosophy, pretty simple, Time-Out.

In the case of the Wall Street CEOs I would be remiss if I did not touch on one major cornerstone of the fight ensuing in Congress and the Senate over this $700 billion bailout package CEO compensation. I really could go on about this, but wanted to end with this item from the Congressional Committee of Oversight & Government Reform back in March of 2007;

CEO Pay Continues to Rise Dramatically. Executive pay is increasing rapidly and dramatically. The CEOs of the 500 largest American companies received an average of $15 million each in 2006, a 38% raise from 2005. And the gap between CEOs and other workers is also increasing. In 1980, CEOs were paid 40 times the average worker. Today, they are paid 600 times more.

Representative Henry Waxman is the King of time-outs!

* total the number of women serving in the 110th Congress, 70 out of 435, 6%.