Innovation 101: Throw money at the financial crisis?

Get your heads out of the sand

I’m pushing 50 and I always thought my general knowledge was passable. Until I watched Slumdog Millionaire and found out that it wasn’t George Washington’s mug on a $100 bill but Benjamin Franklin’s. Strange coincidence and somewhat evangelistic that he was the one who said

He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money. - Benjamin Franklin

So what’s America trying to do to quell the current storm that doesn’t want to go away. Allegation or not, the only course that seemed to come to you was to throw money at the crisis. How smart is that? Doesn’t surprise anyone outside the US but you are taken by surprise when the bailout money gets generously distributed against ‘bonuses payable’ among the very people that caused the crisis to happen.

Imagine giving the bandits more goodies than they’ve already looted. “Let’s give the poor guys some more money so they can come in sedans instead of horses to rob our already beat-up  town.”

How about a something as simple as 1-2-3 ..

1. Send all current bosses of delinquent firms on a holiday to a remote island all expenses paid but no salary, no bonus and no way to ‘bail over’ to another unsuspecting employer.
2. Get some common sense accountants to calculate cashflow requirements for each company.
3. Work out a monthly payment stream and appoint a Payment Marshall to distribute funds based on priority to the people who do real work – employee salaries, rentals, utilities, etc.

That’s a bailout package where you don’t worry about where the money will come from but rather HOW IT WILL BE SPENT.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing; it was here first -(Mark Twain)

Rocket science no? Get your heads out of the sand guys.