Calvin and Hobbes on Why We Hate the Bailout Culture of the Ownership Class and Its Cronies

My own version of Sunday Comics --

How are all these ad-hoc rules and bail outs supposed to create confidence, again?:

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[The credit agencies]: "I'm not going to so my math homework. Look at these unsolved problems. Here's a number in mortal combat with another. One of them is going to get subtracted. But why? What will be left of him? If I answered these, it would kill the suspense. It would resolve the conflict and turn intriguing possibilities into boring old facts."
"I never really thought about the literary possibilities of maths."
"I prefer to savour the mystery."

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""We're sorry to learn that you will soon be dead,
but though you may find this slightly macabre,
we prefer your extinction to the loss of our job."  No, Calvin, your story doesn't sound far-fetched at all, actually.

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Susie [middle American voters to Wall Streeters and Detroit]: You'd get a good grade without doing any work.
Calvin: So?
Susie: It's wrong to get rewards you haven't earned.
Calvin: I've never heard of anyone who couldn't live with that.

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Still think Bernanke and Paulson et al are "real doctors"?

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"Mom's [the economy] not feeling well. So I'm making her a get well card."
"That's thoughtful of you."
"See, on the front it says, 'Get Well Soon' ... and on the inside it says,'Because me bed isn't made, my clothes need to be put away and I'm hungry. Love Calvin.' Want to sign it?"
"Sure, I'm hungry too"

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The wisdom of letting free markets work:

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"Dad, I'd like to have a little talk."
"Um...ok."
"As the wage earner here, its your responsibility to show some consumer confidence and start buying things that will get the economy going and create profits and employment. Here's a list of some big-ticket items I'd like for Christmas. I hope I can trust you to do whats right for our country."
"I've got to stop leaving the Wall Street Journal around."

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What those of us who have a clue that profits make economies and societies prosper and that central planning destroys the coffee table:

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"I just read this great science-fiction story. It's about how machines take control of humans and turn them into zombie slaves."
"So instead of us controlling machines, they control us? Pretty scary idea."
"I''ll say...*HEY* What time is it? My TV show is on."

(Yeah, career choice irony duly noted.)

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How all you socialists and Keynesians sound to the rest of us when you explain your theories:

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[Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson]: "Reality continues to ruin my life."

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The big shakers on Wall Street and other corporate chieftains now begging Joe Sixpack for welfare:

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Bernanke and Paulson and Bush and Pelosi and the rest who told us this economy can never have what used to be a normal, cyclical downturn again:

"Since September it's just gotten colder and colder. There's less daylight now, I've noticed too. This can only mean one thing - the sun is going out. In a few more months the Earth will be a dark and lifeless ball of ice. Dad says the sun isnt going out. He says its colder because the earth's orbit is taking us farther from the sun. He says winter will be here soon.
Isn't it sad how some people's grip on their lives is so precarious that they'll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth?"

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You call it Troubled Asset Relief Program, I call it extortion.  "If we don't bail out Wall Street, Joe Sixpack will lose his job and his ATM card wouldn't work any more...":

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[John Thain]  : "What do you think is the secret to happiness? Is it money, power or fame?"
[Bernie Madoff] : "I'd choose money. If you have enough money, you can buy fame and power. That way you'r have it all and be really happy. Happiness is being famous for your financial ability to indulge in every kind of excess."
JT : "I suppose thats *one* way to define it."
BM : "The part I think I'd like best is crushing people who get in my way."

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The UAW even as we give them $17 billion in outright welfare:

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How we'll feel when we finally have to eat the trillions of dollars that the Fed's wasting on the investment banks and not telling us how or on what junk.  (FBN is suing the Fed under FOIA to get more info, btw):

-  You decide, TARP or Calvinball?

Permanent Rule: You may not play the Calvinball (TARP) the same way twice.

Primary Rule: The following rules are subject to be changed, amended, or deleted by any player(s) involved. These rules are not required, nor necessary to play Calvinball (TARP).

1.0. The following words in these rules are mostly freely interchangeable, the Primary Rule applies (to the banks who get TARP funds):

§ Can

§ May

§ Must

§ Shall

§ Should

§ Will

§ Would