Main Street America's Billion Dollar Bailout Program - It's for the Little Guy

Today's blog is about economic reforms for Main Street Americans. Yesterday was about healthcare reform and tort reform. To update you, no one, not a single tort reformer, has sent in a signed form excluding them from the civil justice system. I'm still waiting for all of them to put their money where their mouths seem to run. And of course we are anxiously waiting for the CEO's of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Tort Reform Association to send in their forms.

Back to the Washington - Wall Street Economic Mess

We Americans have got problems with our retirement savings, our mortgages and the use of credit cards that has led us to borrow way too much. But I have a solution. All we need to do to straighten out the credit card companies and Wall Street bonus-maniacs is to take away their incentives. If you want to see banks walk a straighter more conservative line you simply need to pay off your mortgage. If it's Wall Street you need to withdraw your pension funds. If it's the banks then pay off your mortgage. Each of these financial institutions is allowing greed to take over the manner in which their system works. Your money is the incentive for the biggest grab in the history of this country. It's one of the effects of the baby boomer generation saving for retirement. We all think we are richer than we really are because of the roller coaster ride we're getting from Wall Street accounting shenanigans. The medicine needed for a "good correction" is as simple as a payoff.  Here is the law I suggest we need to have passed.

Be it resolved that the American people are tired of being taken advantage of and therefore enacts the following law:

"Any person who withdraws money from a qualified retirement account will not be taxed on any amount used to pay off a mortgage, credit card or other interest bearing debt."

It's that simple. Cash in your 401K and use the money to pay off your mortgage and credit card debts. Stop using a credit card. Stop putting money into your retirement accounts. Instead take a vacation and enjoy life while the Wall Street CEO's, hedge fund operators, credit card CEO's and the investment banks have heart attacks over not having any money to steal. If there isn't any of your money in Wall Street why should you care when the next bubble bursts or who is paying themselves a mega-billion-dollar bonus? If you stop using a credit card, except of course for the frequent flier miles (pay it off every month - use only those cards with no annual fee) you won't care what the interest charges might be next month. And guess what when your banker is no  longer receiving income from you in the form of an interest payment they too will start to court you to borrow money at reasonable prices and will actually own your loan rather than peddle it to pension funds in the form of junk securitized loans.

The Right Way to Use Credit Cards

What most people fail to grasp about credit cards is that when you use one you're actually in business with the credit card company. Always keep in mind that when you use a credit card to buy something the credit card company is making money. So if you buy a $100 item the credit card company just made $3.00. You're partners with them, but they aren't very good partners with you. If you stop using their credit card they go out of business - their income would certainly go down.  Why wouldn't they waive the late fee if you threaten to stop using their card? Business partners, that's us and them.

Economic Reforms that Work - Action to Take

If you want economic reforms that work, then take away the incentive for continuing to rip you off.  Write to the White House and tell President Obama that economic reforms can be written in just 30 words. This is Main Streets' Billion Dollar Bailout.

Contact the White House.

Contact the U.S. Congress.