More cowbell

A classic skit from the television show “Saturday Night Live” features Will Ferrell, Christopher Walken and 1970s rock group Blue Oyster Cult. In the skit, Walken plays star-maker producer Bruce Dickinson, the group performs its best-known hit, “The Reaper,” and Ferrell accompanies with the cowbell. As they play take after take, the band objects to the added noise, while the producer insists that the tune needs “more cowbell.” After continued objections from the original artists, the producer says, “Guess what? I’ve got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell.”

The comic effect, of course, is the ubiquitous, unwelcome clanging sound disrupting the classic rock song. Walken and Ferrell insist on the cowbell and prevail to the complete frustration of the rock artists.

Names change, same result
Fast forward 30 years and change a few names. Producer Dickinson’s role goes to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Congress steps in to handle Will Ferrell’s furious performance with the cowbell. The electorate, otherwise known as the American people, takes the role of the band, remaining convinced that the cowbell only distorts the product.

Paulson, the expert in economics and high finance, foretells the doom of America’s shaky economy and quickly prescribes a “cowbell” package of government intervention that bails out mismanaged financial institutions and naughty top executives. Adamant about the move, Paulson continues to deliver the gloom and doom message to all will listen. Everything will crash and burn, he contends, if we don't pass this emergency measure.

Congress, eager to follow the recommendations of the administration’s expert, shows just how little faith it has in America’s financial system by quickly passing the largest financial rescue package ever suggested, nearly three quarters of a trillion dollars. The reasoning: if we put this money in those institutions, they’ll start working again, lending and moving money around the struggling economy.

In the meantime, citizens across the country sit shaking their heads. They wonder who’s in charge and who decides that taxpayers should be on the hook for the greed and mismanagement of some mega-banks and other financial corporations.

Several weeks later, after Congress makes sure that we keep the cowbell, top authorities are scratching their heads and complaining that taxpayer money was used to pay stockholder dividends and enhance executive compensation packages with the balance literally sitting in the bank. With few strings tied to managing the money so easily and quickly handed over from taxpayers (who seldom if ever get bailed out by the government) the banks did what banks do with cash: keep the stockholders happy and at bay, keep the top executives in place and hang onto some cash, because, as everyone knows, in a struggling economic climate, the one with the most cash wins.

The big difference? The late-night television skit was so ridiculous that it was funny. The government’s move is so ridiculous that taxpayers, themselves sweating through a tight financial stretch, laugh cynically and wonder what’s next.