In honor of "Change" and the shit-for-brains who are getting bonus' at AIG for being sneaky, thieving, lying dirtbags who have crashed our economy, a humble proposal . . .
You can imagine the immense problems of actually mailing, shipping, and transferring giant reams of paper (stocks certificate) back and forth when the NYSE (for example) trades a billion shares a day.
So, most trades are electronic, and the physical shares are held at DTC, or the depository trust corp, and whenever a share is traded, it is done electronically with a "book entry" through your brokerage firm.
AIG has 2.69 billion shares outstanding, 10% is held by insiders, and 48% is held by institutions (mutual funds, endowments, etc) leaving 42% floating around or 1,129,800,000 shares.
As far as I can discover, we as taxpayers own 80% of this 1,129,800,000 or 903,840,000 shares.
903,840,000 shares divided by 300 MM people is about 3 shares per man/woman/child in the U.S. That is just AIG, what about CITI? Goldman Sachs? Wells Fargo? The others getting bailout $$?
If I bought a Treasury bond, I would be shipped the bond cert, unless I instructed otherwise. Why not these firms we are bailing out?
So here is my proposal: Put all of the shares we own in all of the companies we have bailed out together. When you put a portfolio of equities together, it is a mutual fund.
Call it the "2009 American Bailout Mutual Fund" or whatever.
FORCE EVERY EXECUTIVE AT THE VP LEVEL AND ABOVE AT THESE COMPANIES TO OWN ONLY THE SAME MUTUAL SHARES AS US.
We can all then politely ask the Treasury to MAIL US OUR CERTS IN THIS NEW Mutual Fund.
We can put them in the safe, or send them to our broker, but more important . . .
WE THE PEOPLE WILL THEN HAVE A SAY IN THE MANAGEMENT OF THESE FIRMS AS SHAREHOLDERS, AND WHEN WE DO NOT LIKE THE SHENANIGANS/GOINGS ON/ WE CAN DUMP OUR SHARES.
So whadda ya say? Capitalism with a democratic flair? Color the new certs green in honor of St Pats!
-Prodigal Son
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