A proposal (which I have CC’d to my congressmen) for paying back the American taxpayer for bailing out Wall Street:
Impose, as some have already suggested, a .25 per cent trading fee on all future stock transactions. But better yet, put the money collected into an interest-earning fund, then return all, or a substantial portion of, the money directly to American taxpayers in the form of annual dividend checks, as they do up north with the Alaska Permanent Fund. Call it, if you like, the American Permanent Fund (© 2008 by Paul Woodford, thank you).
Now that’s payback regular people can understand. You want public support for your Wall Street bailout plan? This is how to get it.
My wife tells me I’m too cynical. As I have just demonstrated, though, I’m still capable of astonishing leaps of naivete!