Santa Clawback

As the credit crisis drags on and on and grinds all manner of people worldwide ever downwards and threats of more and bigger bailouts loom on the horizon, direction forward is not clear. Whatever $800 billion the Housing bill may have raised the Federal debt ceiling for dear old Fannie and Freddy, the source of that cash is not quite evident given that tax coffers aren't expected to rise anytime soon and -- hey -- we may just find a third war to get involved in.

The banks don't have the money, that's the problem. The government can just crank up the printing presses, but we know where that leads. The one group we know does have some money is the very rich. CapGemini's 2007 World Wealth survey pegged the total assets of the wealthy at $40.7 trillion dollars. Admittedly, a lot of that's in the same emerging markets who already bought our T-Bills and gave us the liquidity to splurge on granite countertops and temperature-controlled cupholders, but a lot of it is here.

Given that much of the money that has accrued to the top 1% of the population and the top .01% of the population has come there way in the last few years and the last decade, to forestall dramatic changes in the US income tax code, it would behoove the executive and major investor class to just give some of the money they've pulled out of mortgages, structured products and back-dated options back to the government. Wrap it up in a bow and hand it to Paulson and Bernanke. Someone around the Street should take up this cause now, be it a Felix Rohatyn or a Steven Rattner or a Bob Rubin or even Larry and Sergei, somebody with some weight. It can't be done through a Gates Foundation or an Open Society Institute, these dollars need to come home to mama M3, and it's getting close to dinner time.