"Please, Sir...I Want Some More...and Some More...And Some....

The things I know, I know really well.

The things I don’t know, I don’t know at all.

That’s why I’m steering clear of any serious bitching about the bailout of the big three automakers.

Oh, I’m right there with a lot of you, feeling, at least, weary and, at most, pissed off, that once again tax dollars are being spent on everything BUT new schools, hospitals, housing for the homeless, et al.

But I like to think of myself as smart enough to keep my mouth shut when it comes to subjects in which I don’t have sufficient expertise to offer expert opinion.

And even the PhD’s in economics are in various states of agree/disagree about the issue.

To bailout or not to bailout.
That is the question.

The party line is that if the bailout doesn’t happen, the big three will collapse and the financial ripple could easily and quickly become an economic tsunami.

Obviously, I have no way of knowing whether that’s a fair assessment or just a fear tactic to get us all to suck it up and pull the stock optioned coated asses of those mismanaging CEO morons out of the fire.

And the only sure test of the theory is to let them collapse.

And then hope to God that the wave doesn’t wash us all back to 1932.

So, for whatever it’s worth, I’m going to try and think of this payout as an insurance premium.

Glass half full stuff.

It occurs to me, though, at a more philosophical level, that this bailout and all the others, for that matter, are a contradiction to one of the most basic and earliest learned lessons of childhood.

If you spend your allowance before the end of the week, don’t come crying back to me for more money.

That may be the source, deep down, of the frustration that a lot of us are feeling.

As parents, we’re instinctively rooting for Congress to tell the big three that THEY’VE got to suck it up and lie in the bed that they’ve made.

The problem, of course, is that when you tell your kid to live with the fact that their allowance is gone, it doesn’t result in all of the other kids in the neighborhood having to go without food, clothing or shelter for the foreseeable.

And that, I think, is why there is so much emotion about this issue.

Because it’s not about lending a helping hand to a friend in need.

It’s about having a gun put to our head and being told to fork it over.
Or else.

It’s one thing to teach little Johnny a lesson.

It’s another to drag Johnny Q Public over the side, too.