The fierce urgency of Goya's The Third of May

El tres de mayo de 1808, Francisco de Goya, 1814

Using the awesome power of super science (that makes a lot of Flash Gordon type noises), I bring you a Washington Post article from the future. I could have looked up some lottery numbers, but I'm here to serve you.

Geithner Asks Congress for Broad Power to Seize YOU

Tuesday, March 24, 2011; 3:50 PM

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner asked Congress today for new regulatory authority for non-business entities such as YOU in order to "eliminate gaps in supervision" and avoid potentially catastrophic threats to the nation's financial system.

Geithner told the House Financial Services Committee that such authority would have allowed the government to bail out a bunch of people last year at a far lower cost to taxpayers, a position backed by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke. The government currently has the authority to seize only [my temporal visualizer is a little fuzzy here].

President Obama said he hopes "it doesn't take too long to convince Congress" of the need for new regulatory powers, and Democratic congressional leaders expressed support. But Republicans voiced reservations, with the GOP leader in the House calling the idea a power grab.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting at the White House with the visiting Moonbase Alpha*** prime minister, Obama said his administration is working on a detailed proposal to give the government resolution authority so that troubled non-business entities like YOU can be shut down in orderly fashion, contracts can be renegotiated and bad assets can be sold off "in a way that doesn't endanger the entire system." He said this should be "just one phase of a broader regulatory framework that we're going to have to put in place to prevent these kinds of crises from happening again."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, seemed inclined to support Geithner's request, saying the government should have the same power over YOU that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has over banks.

"Banks also failed in 2008," Frank said. "But the fact is that we have in place mechanisms . . . that contained the damage. . . . We need to give somebody, somewhere, in the federal government. . . the authority to do what the FDIC can do with banks."

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said of the proposal, "Obviously, not having the capacity with non-banks is a real gap. So I welcome this." He told reporters, "You just can't keep putting capital into YOU. We've got to figure out a way to deal with YOU."

[Insert ominous 1950's science fiction movie music here]

This is the first few paragraphs of an article in the Washington Post. The parts I changed are in boldface and italics. It will either make you giggle or cry. Those of you who are giggling, great. I hope you're still giggling when you realize that your ever-loving government has their hand rammed up your butt to the elbow. Those of you who are crying, if you vote for one incumbent in 2010, you might as well start giggling.

***Yes, yes, I know. Moonbase Alpha was supposed to be blasted out of Earth's orbit on September 13, 1999. That was our old future.

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