My husband and I own a small business. We work hard to provide products to our customers, but our disposable income is drying up quicker than water in the Sahara Desert. We would appeal to the federal government to bail us out, but it seems Big Bank Executives beat us to it. Adding insult to injury, these executives set part of the money that congress and the President so kindly GAVE to the big banks to bail them out of their own stupidity aside for Executive Bonuses. There are only two reasons why an employee would get a bonus, first for exceptional job performance and second for profit sharing. We all know there’s no profit to share, so this must be a “performance bonus”. Perhaps these executives should have to tell the American people who are so generously funding these bonuses, why their performance was so exemplary even though their company is on the verge of failure. Most Americans know that a business doesn’t spontaneously fail and they also know that executives aren’t hired because they look good. They are hired because they assumedly know more than the average person either through education or experience and are capable of performing the duties of the position they have been hired to fill. So, Big Bank Executive, if your holidays are going to be brighter than your average American’s because you will get the money we so desperately need, I think you should explain it to us.
Here’s an example:

Dear Duped American Citizens,

I am appealing to you so that I might receive millions of your bailout dollars in bonus money that I rightfully deserve because I have earned it, and have already allocated to myself. You may remember that I, with absolutely no thought to the consequences you would have to bear, did knowingly and irresponsibly loan money to anyone with a pulse, a Social Security number (real or imagined), and some manner of paycheck without concern that they are earning only minimum wage and want to borrow 200 times their lifetime earning potential. Thanks to President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, even my children know that someone who wants to borrow far more than their monthly income could possible allow them to pay back would lead to a deficit situation. Because of my unwavering optimism and failure to accurately predict the outcome of my decisions, I allowed, and even encouraged, my employees to over-extend the resources of our bank thereby putting us in the position to implore the American taxpayer to bail us out. Perhaps I should have sought the council of those more learned than myself…my children.

Speaking of my children, without the bonus money that we have come to rely on each year, my children will be denied the simple necessities of life, their offshore college funds, private boarding schools, luxury vacations, custom Tommy Hilfiger wardrobes, top of the line I-electronics (I-phone, I-pod, I-tunes), and the comfort of knowing that the bail money for any stupid thing they do is still available. How do you expect me to look in their sad little eyes and admit I caused the fall of the greatest free-market economy in the world?

And then there’s my wife…without her best friends Gucci, Ann Taylor, Hermes, Tiffanies and Saks, she just may free-fall into a depression that no amount of designer anti-depressants and competent therapists can cure. Telling her she may have to downsize into a house we can afford, layoff the staff and buy off the rack could ensure that my voice will be a few octaves higher soon after delivering the news and my true gender will forevermore be called into question.

This year after you have lived within your means and weathered the storm of higher gas prices, higher food prices, higher utility prices and the disappearance of your disposable income as you are scraping together your pennies in hopes of buying your child a new coat to keep them warm for the winter or trying to find some gift to give your children for the holidays that doesn’t look like it came from the Dollar Store, think of me, remember how my hours of tireless dedication to opportunistic capitalism put so many people in homes they can’t afford and let me take generously from your money.

Sincerely,

Big Bank Executive Who Wants More of Your Money

Well, since you put it that way, it would be my pleasure to give you everything I own so that you can live an indulgent, consequence-free life. By the way, the right thing to do with the bail out money is to bail out your business not continue to feed at the trough of the American people who so kindly have not arrived at your house with torches and pitchforks…yet.