Seriously. At least something interesting would probably happen. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what we all want? For something interesting and exciting to happen? Face it, Iraq is no longer interesting. Nobody cares about it or thinks about it. “Blah blah, the Sunni Awakening Council drafted some resolution in coordination with Anbar Mothers Against Drunk Driving or something.” Afghanistan isn’t interesting — hasn’t been for a long time. “Ho-hum, news alert, we found some more rocks and dirt in southern Afghanistan.”

But literally flushing one trillion dollars down the toilet? That’s interesting. When I walk down the street in my stolen bus driver uniform, wearing my special helmet, and I grab people and say, “Let’s flush a trillion dollars down the toilet, we can even use my toilet,” people are INTERESTED. They are ENGAGED. They are STRUGGLING — but I am stronger than they are.

John McCain sounds a lot like a certain political cartoonist I know, named “Me!”

If you’re evaluating the politican-as-narrative-vessel, a tendency to personalize conflict is a tremendous virtue. The problem comes now that McCain is being asked to seriously understand world events and crises, and the public is looking for more than a good quote or an angry denunciation. They’re looking for a compelling explanation. And McCain doesn’t have any of those.

I think McCain actually does have a compelling explanation: Everybody (who’s not in the military fighting for freedom) got greedy and stole too many mortgages and so now we have to kill Russia.

Please call your Senators and Representative and tell them to limit the bailout to ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

Congress main line
(202) 224-3121

Nancy Pelosi
(202) 225-4965

Steny Hoyer
(202) 225-4131

CALL SCRIPT:

Hello, is this Nancy Pelosi (“Puh-LOW-see”)? My name is [SAY YOUR NAME REALLY LOUD], and I am a concerned citizen of the great state of [YOUR STATE], home of the [WHATEVER THE BEST SPORTS TEAM IN YOUR STATE IS] and the birthplace of [SAY SOME STUPID THING YOUR STATE IS FAMOUS FOR].

I am calling today to demand that Congress limit the proposed bank bailout to ONE MILLION DOLLARS. I did some research on my computer and I think the figure of one trillion dollars is just too goddamn big. Why would I entrust this group of idiot jackasses with a cool trill? You must be “outta ya mind” if you think I’m gonna go for that. Let’s start with ONE MILLION DOLLARS and see how they do. If they do good, then we’ll give them another million. The more better they do, the more money we give them.

Oh, and it better not be my money you’re giving them, either, or I will go buck wild. BELIEVE THAT.

Thanks for your time, and I can’t wait until we all rise up and kill the bankers and the deregulators and bring this country to its knees.

Thanks and have a wonderful day.

END OF CALL SCRIPT.

Thinking about the economy is my passion. Some of you may know I have an MBA from the Chicago School, and a PhD in Macroeconomics from the Stanford Post-Doctoral Institute. My thesis was on government bailouts in over-leveraged inflationary markets, with a secondary focus on discretionary bailouts in stagflationated markets. For my final grade, I modeled a three-quarter recessionary market on a bell curve with five hedge funds.

So, of course, now is the time for me to really strut my stuff and put all other econ-bloggers on notice.

Basically, the current bailout proposal will only work if liquidity is brought to bear on those terminal assets the “shadow banking system” has been folding into mortgages. I always have to “LOL” when I hear journalists say the markets will absorb any underutilized bonds within two quarters, per the so-called “Dirty Dollar Paradox.” Guys, I hate to break it to you, but bonds are not indexed to the phases of the moon. Never have been, never will be — unless we upgrade our dollar-pegged assets to the Euro and then convert everything into PayPal money. And I, for one, don’t see that happening.

Then again, maybe Ben Bernakanke (sp?) knows something I don’t?

All I’m trying to say is, “if you throw water on a burning penny, don’t be surprised if you wind up with nickels all over your face.”

And you can take that to the bank — the money bank.

THE END.

Another reader chimes in on the inaugural edition of Friday Face-Offs:

I would just like to say that in my opinion the inaugural Friday Faceoff was a resounding triumph. I think Rubberband 101’s second version (of “Umbrella”) opened a rift in the space-time continuum (unlike a certain suckass Large Hadron Collider).

Ladies and gentlemen, here’s your new desktop image:

LOL, that’s how you spell it!!!

Those of us who believe we are living in a fourth Golden Age of Talkingpointsmemo.com have always predicted that the fifth and final Golden Age of TPM would be preceded by JMM blogging on multiple web sites simultaneously in a display of force that would demoralize all rivals and bring the blogosphere to the brink of armageddon.

That moment has finally arrived. . .

The key components in exchange for the money have to be some sort of equity in the companies being rescued (I’ll leave it to the experts to figure out the mechanics — which I grant is likely a highly complex matter) and structural reforms that create oversight, accountability and transparency to ensure nothing like this happens again.

Look, honestly? I have no idea what he’s talking about. I assume it has something to do with that thing that’s happening where we have to pay millionaires one trillion dollars not to poison our water(?). I’m just glad to see JMM on the front page of Huffington Post . . .

. . . because that tells me that our life of misery on this earthly plane is almost over. Soon we will be pure light. And pure blog.

Wait, how big is the bailout? At first I thought it was a trillion dollars, but now I think it might be a billion dollars (I don’t think “trillion” is a real number, I’ve always been skeptical). . . or is it just a million dollars?

LOL, what if it was a million dollar bailout? That would be my favorite bailout of all time.

Let’s all call our representatives and demand the bailout be limited to one million dollars.

Just in from a reader:

“Friday Face-Offs” blew me away. If there was commenting on your blog I’d have written “MNFTIU = My New Favourite Tune Is ‘Umbrella’.”

LOL, there will never be commenting on my blog! I don’t care what any of you think!!! LOL, LOL, can’t wait for that trillion dollar bailout!