Stoogepie Bank: Open for Business

When I was just a wee stoogepie, my daddy used to say, “Son, every great crisis presents a great opportunity.” Then he would create a crisis of some kind.

So, I have given a lot of thought to this whole global financial crisis. Where is the great opportunity?

Yeah, the financial crisis gave the nation as a whole the balls to elect a black president, and that’s something to be proud of. And it may yet give the nation the hair on those balls to institute a truly massive national stimulus that, while it would be nearly impossible to beat Roosevelt’s New Deal, could come close. Trillions of dollars may go toward making this nation’s middle class prosper and once again control America’s vast wealth. We’ll have to wait and see on that one. The stimulus package already approved by Congress is only a drop in the bucket, though. It doesn’t even yet include a bailout of banks.

All this is fine. But meanwhile, I have been asking myself, how can I, stoogepie, make billions off of this world economic crisis?

American Express provided the answer. See, in November, American Express, which is a credit card company and not a bank, decided that it would declare itself a bank. It did. Then it applied for and received $3.39 billion in bailout money. The CIT Group, a commercial lender that offers no traditional bank services and no consumer services, did the same thing. It declared itself a bank and then got $2.33 billion in bailout money. Both companies became banks just to take advantage of the bailout.

And so it occurred to me, why not open a bank? I mean, the final bill for bailing out America’s banks is very likely to be a couple of trillion bucks. I want some of that. Don’t you want some of that?

So, welcome to stoogepie Bank. You can view the mockup of the full stoogepie Bank website here. None of it works yet and, hopefully, the bank will be belly up before I ever finish designing the website.

Here is how it works: you send stoogepie Bank your money and I lose it all making incredibly bad investments, just like a real financial mogul. I will even make shoddy investments such as lending your money back to you so that you can buy houses and fancy shoes. Need a student loan or a credit card? Well, stoogepie Bank will give you both. And, instead of asking you to pay back your loans with money, stoogepie Bank will accept sex. Until the bailout money comes. Then we’ll all head to our own luxury retreat.

See, it’s incredibly easy to start a bank. Here in New York, for instance, all you need is $7-10 million in start-up capital. Then you pay a $12,500 fee and you have a bank. Okay, you also need to fill out a 54-page application, but most of that application is composed of instructions, like a for-dummies guide to opening a bank. In California, it’s more complicated to figure out the fees because you have to pay an assessment of your bank’s total assets and, to start a bank, you must have a minimum of $6-10 million in start-up capital. With $10 million, your fee for starting a bank would be $14,417 this year. You pay that and fill out a one-page form, and you’ve got yourself a bank! All of a sudden, you are eligible for bailout money!

Now, I don’t know about you, but I want some bailout money. See, I’m all for helping out people in need, but I kind of have a problem with helping out people who are just stoopid or dishonest. Like the bankers who lost all that money and then got massive bonuses with the bailout money. Or the many people who lied on mortgage applications they knew they could never afford. Let’s face it: not only the lenders and appraisers and mortgage brokers were dishonest. Borrowers frequently lied on their applications, too. In fact, according to one survey, as many as 70% of the people defaulting on their mortgages lied on their mortgage applications, many lying about their income by multiplying it by as much five and others forging documents using their computers.

But more and more, I wonder whether I am just the fool. Were all those cheats the smart ones? While I was busy just going to work every day and putting off buying a brand new stoogepen until the market softened, they were getting cheap loans and big bonuses and riding the wave of plenty. And, now, when the bailout comes, I wind up with fucking diddly. They all get bailed out, and I get passed by.

Well, no fucking way! Give me my fucking share of the bailout money. They are giving away trillions! Trillions!

And, since I know that people who read my blog are uncommonly responsible and honest, none of you are probably getting shit out of this bailout, either. So, put all your money in stoogepie Bank! Get StoogeBling® and borrow your money and more back! Then, when I get a fat check from the bailout, I’ll send you your share.

I did my taxes recently. They are not finished yet but I owe a bundle of money again, in part because 2008 was not all that bad a year for me in spite of all the doom and gloom. But some of my tax money is going to wind up in irresponsible people’s pockets. Oh, sure, some of it will go to people who lost their jobs for no reason at all and some will go to people who are losing their homes although they did everything responsible and sensibly. A lot of it is going to the good, honest, hardworking people of this country I admire so much because I am nothing like them and wonder sometimes whether they even exist.

But none of my tax money is coming back to me.

Well, that’s fucking bullshit.

So, please, send me your money. I promise that I can be wildly irresponsible and I will lose much, much more money than you send me. And then, when I get my $25 billion like Wells Fargo got, we can all split it. Well, maybe like Wells Fargo, I will buy up another bank with about half of that money to get myself a tax break.

We’ll split what’s left over after I buy a bank. Don’t get fucking greedy.

Of course, I will have to be compensated as president of the bank. Unfortunately, thanks to Obama, I won’t be able to get the kind of pay that Goldman Sachs executives got with their bailout money. Before Obama took office, as part of the Bush bailout, the top five executives at Goldman Sachs were paid $242 million altogether for their fine work bankrupting the company so it needed to be bailed out. Now, under Obama, I will only be able to get up to $500,000 per year plus stock options that can only be used after the bailout money is paid back. Since I never intend to pay my bailout money back, that means I can only make half a mil. That’s practically fucking charity, people, because I will lose money better and faster than any of those fucktards at Goldman Sachs or Citicorp or AIG or Capital One did.

There is the small chance that the US will nationalize all the banks, and that would completely destroy my plan to get bailout money. But Obama has tried to dispel those nationalization rumors—without actually ruling that option entirely out—by citing his administration’s preference for a sound privately owned banking system. Yeah, I want that, too. As long as I get some fucking bailout money. Now, give me my fucking money.

Anyways, all I’m saying is, send stoogepie Bank all your money. I will invest it unwisely and lose it all. I promise! I will lend it back to you to buy whatever the fuck you want with nothing but your lies and promises as collateral. And you can pay your loans back with blowjobs and rimjobs until the bailout money comes. And then you’ll get your share.

So, anyway, aside from my announcement of stoogepie Bank, I do need to tell you all that there have been not one but two deaths in the stoogepie family in the past week, including my grandma. So, that pretty much leaves just me and mum still alive in the United States. When people die, they leave a lot of baggage behind that has to be taken care of, including funeral arrangements and will readings and unpaid taxes and such that I now have the pleasure of keeping on top of, so I may appear even more out of touch than usual for the next week or so. But I’m fine, as usual.

So that I could deliver the sermons, stoogepie became an ordained minister at the Universal Life Church Monastery, which claims to have ordained over twenty million people since 1959. You can become an ordained minister online, too! It takes ten minutes! Then you can order your Ministry-in-a-Box like I did so you, too, can buy your friends and family members a ticket to Marble City in your own personal style.

For the low additional price of $29.99, you can also receive the honorary degree Doctor of Divinity or Doctor of Metaphysics. And for only $11.99 per title, you can be proclaimed a saint or even be proclaimed the pope. I paid for a lot of these, so please call me Dr. Saint Stoogepie from now on. I don’t want to be pope. I don’t do headgear.

That’s all I have to say about that. But don’t forget to send me all your money.