Who did you think was paying for the stimulus plan anyway? The bankers at JP Morgan (JPM), Citigroup, (C), Wells Fargo (WFC), or Bank of America (BAC) don’t have that much money. Why do you think they are begging at the White House every time their private jets land in town?

Even the spending limits on Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Lee Allen’s Visa (V) and American Express (AXP) cards combined will not be able to repay all the money that has been dispatched to the four corners of this country.

2008 AIG Bonus: $2.1 million and a red shirt

One of the smaller AIG bonus checks

When asked what he would do about these egregious AIG bonuses, President Obama said he would request that his powerhouse man-of-steel economic fixit-t man Timothy Geithner to ask the AIG executives if they would please give the bonus money back.

What would you do if someone asked you to please give back your $2.1 million bonus check?

I don’t think the word “please” is really strong enough language in this case. 

The US government doesn’t ask us to please pay income tax… They make it clear that if we do not pay our tax bill, they will drag us through years of costly and pointless courtroom proceedings then take our houses away, put us in prison – managed by Corrections Corporation of America (CXW), and force our spouses to scrub floors in the various government buildings like the Pentagon for the rest of their days.

The US government doesn’t ask us to please marry one wife at a time. As soon as they find out you have taken on more than your fare share of simultaneous wives they send the FBI and various other law enforcement people along with a full contingent of television camera crews to knock on the door of your Utah compound, “Can we please talk to the lady of the house?” Why do those bigamists always fall for that line? Then after they parade the skinny sixty-year-old husband to forty-two wives, ranging in age from sixteen to forty-five out in front of the TV cameras, they put him through years of costly and pointless courtroom proceedings then make him choose one wife he wants to keep. Later that day they find Mr. Bigamist in some alley dead from massive blood loss and what looks like thousands of finger nail scratches covering his body. Not to mention the loss of a certain private part that would probably have drawn some attention in a health club locker room.

Is Geithner thinking? I see his lips moving
but I have no idea what he’s saying

Would you handover $2.1 million
 to this guy if he asked please?

But when Mr. Obama pages through that Presidential Rules-of-the-Road binder, somewhere in the back he will probably get to a page that says something like, “never ask people please when they have stolen money from the American people,” and, “If all else fails, dial this number: (310) 597-3781.
 
Now, kind readers, please do not actually dial that number because if you do you may get none other than Jack Bauer, the unstoppable government agent from Fox Television’s – a division of NewsCorp (NWS) – alleged drama called “24”. I say alleged because I think, although the situations are made up, all the technology, weapons, organization dynamics, and computer mumbo jumbo are real.  In fact that show plays out like a warning to terrorists and other bad guys on why they should not mess with the United States of America. There was an Al Jazeera report that inferred the reason Osama Bin Laden stays in hiding is because he is afraid of Jack Bauer.

Now, you may think calling in Jack Bauer is a little harsh action for these AIG bonus takers…  I think not. Because once the pattern is set where people are rewarded for misspending taxpayer money we head down a deep dark rabbit hole. After all, the government has cleverly contained all the known misspenders like this to Congress where they can keep an eye on them.

So what would Jack Bauer do with these AIG bonus takers?

To be prepared to explore this question, I spent last weekend watching the last six seasons of “24” on DVD. Now, those of you who are math inclined and know this show plays in real-time probably figured out that to watch 6 seasons at 24 hours each would take me 144 hours and there are only 48 hours in a weekend.

Jack Bauer reporting for duty Mr. President