Why do only huge, badly run financial institutions merit buyouts and rescues from the federal government? As the head of a small badly run financial institution—Charley Family Inc.—it would be nice if the U.S. Congress came up with a bailout plan for me.

As I understand it, the government plans to “;buy up”; all the “;bad paper”; that banks, mortgage companies and other big financial institutions have accumulated, leaving only “;good paper”; for the institutions to deal with. Dude, I've got lots of bad paper just dying to be bought up. My paper is worse than Pravda and the National Enquirer combined. This so-called “;bad paper”; that the government is buying up allegedly represents “;assets”; that at some time will be worth something that can be sold later to the benefit of taxpayers.

Let me get this straight. Government bureaucrats and politicians who can't even keep the country's checkbook balanced are going to assume ownership of billions of dollars of bad mortgages and loans and somehow convert that load of rubbish into something profitable?

The only way they are going to spin that load of financial caca into gold is to make Rumpelstiltskin chairman of the Federal Reserve and King Midas the secretary of the Treasury. Oh, yeah, and while they're at it, they'd better replace Congressman Barney Frank, that pompous gasbag supposedly in charge of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, with the Lucky Charms leprechaun. How can Frank, as head of the committee that oversees—according to its own official description—“;banks, banking, economic stabilization, insurance, international finance and securities,”; have missed seeing this financial meltdown coming, failed to do anything about it and now blame the mess on everyone else?

  If the government can't make money when it starts off ahead, how is it going to make money when it starts off $700 billion in the hole? But if the government insists on taking possession of all this “;bad paper,”; I suggest it quickly hand management of it over to a committee made up of people who actually know how to make money, like Donald Trump, Warren Buffett, T. Boone Pickens, Oprah, Steve Wynn and the guy who runs the shrimp truck out on the North Shore. Who would you rather have handling the country's checkbook, Barney Blowhard and His Fannie Mae Buccaneers or Bill Gates?

Since the government is now apparently in the business of taking over the debts of private businesses and making money off of them, then the size of the business should not matter. I'm sure many small private enterprises in Hawaii (not just Charley Inc.) would love for the government to wipe their debts off the books so they can make a go of being financially viable without have to make those annoying monthly payments.

I've actually come to admire those guys with cardboard signs at intersections asking for handouts. They are more solvent than AIG. And most of us, too. They are EVEN. They want to work for food. We work for MasterCard and Visa.