Sunday, January 25, 2009

Mr. President, a simple idea: call up the investment bankers once in a while

Mr. President, I heard you didn’t care for the news about Merrill Lynch chief John Thain’s profligate decorating. Neither did millions of us.

What would be wrong with placing random unscheduled phone calls to some of the Wall Street bankers once in a while? Start off with “So, tell me a little about how you’re spending our tax money.” Use the silence. Let them spin, but follow up with specific questions. Depose them in a pleasant way. (Depose in the verbal examination sense—not remove them from office!)

Convention says you “can’t” do this, but we’ve come to expect that you’ll pull off some unconventional and unexpected feats. In fact we’re counting on it.

Update: Excellent! On Monday Citigroup was stonewalling on the planned purchase of a $47 million corporate jet using some of my money. Then a U.S. treasury official ”reached out” to the bank. Now Citgroup says it won’t take delivery. Nice one.