Break Up Bailed Out Companies - Let's Make 'Too Big to Fail' Companies Extinct

As I listen to the latest news of AIG using taxpayer dollars from people like you and me to pay their wealthy executives $165 million in bonuses, I think about all the great money-saving green actions that could be completed with this money -- weatherizing schools, installing clean energy, building community gardens, protecting and conserving our public lands, and so much more.

As far as I'm concerned, companies that are too big to fail MUST be broken up so that if their greedy executives screw up again, we taxpayers don't have to foot the tab.

I mean, like the rest of you, I can think of several bad financial decisions that I've made that I'm not being bailed out for. Like some stupid dot.com investments I made back in 2000. Why should these idiots get bailed out for doing essentially the same thing at a much larger scale (if not much worse -- as these guys are pros and should have known better)?

Let's push President Obama and Congress to make the term 'Too Big to Fail' extinct. As soon as a company gets to that point--according to standards defined by a panel of independent experts--it will have to be broken up, Standard Oil style. AIG, Citi, Bank of America, you name it -- time to break 'em up into entities that if they fail again, we can comfortably bid them farewell and tell them, "ahhh, yes, we have chosen to let the market decide." After all, if they can say that when we want to regulate them, we sure can use it on them when they want a bailout.

Capitalism for profits, but socialism for losses?? Friggin' hypocrites.

Click on the cartoon, by the way -- some good stuff there...