Monopoly Money Matters

House and Senate Check List

While the people of the world were holding their collective breaths awaiting the approval by the House and the Senate of President Bush's financial bailout plan, we wondered why it took so long for the measure to be approved.

I managed to procure a copy of the official check list used in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. (A copy of the document can be seen at the right.)

While the degree of initiative and protocol can be admired, it easy to see why it took so long for a vote of approval to be reached. In their own inevitable fashion, our law makers managed to waste a total of three hours. As yet here has been no explanation offered for the two one-hour breaks, as well as another hour for lunch.

Although a fact-finding committee has been assembled to study the inequity of time, I have determined why those three hours were wasted. It was simply a matter of vocabulary, or lack thereof to be more precise. It seems that no one in Washington was able to come up with three more synonyms of the word "nothing."

I am mailing a copy of the latest Roget's Thesaurus to our capitol, C.O.D., of course.

I find it appalling that the only solution to the financial crisis anyone could suggest was to come up with a $700 billion bailout plan! It was equally unsettling to think that the House and Senate were allowed to put their grimy fingerprints on the problem in the first place.

I submit The Hale Plan:

Rather than take control of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or any other financial entity, I would have the Federal Reserve seize the assets of Parker Brothers. In particular, they would take over the Monopoly™ division. Overnight our Treasury Department would be the beneficiary of the game's liquidity; Parker Brothers prints $50 billion worth of Monopoly™ money each year.

The Treasury Dept. has the resources to easily print 10-fold that figure in one day, and by doubling the process could be generating $1 trillion. With that much money flowing into the economy, even the executives of AIG would be hard-pressed to find ways to spend it on weekend getaways and vacations.

As for our existing currency, those dollars would be turned over to Parker Brothers to be used to stock their Monopoly™ games. In time the government would divest itself of the company and allow Parker Brothers to return to private operations. Gone from the Monopoly™ game will be the familiar colored bills, replaced with $15,140 worth of useless greenbacks.

With The Hale Plan in effect, I won't be alone in conducting scavenger hunts in basements and attics looking for those old, no longer in use Monopoly™ games. Just think, every game contains $15,140 just waiting to be pumped back into our economy. (You won't even have to play that long, boring game either!)

What will you do with your new found windfall?

No.1489