Now, the U.S. Treasury is considering buying banks. Buying banks. That is to say that if Bob's Bank in Godknowswhere, West Wiscarolina is going under, the U.S. Department of the Treasury is considering bailing out Bob's Bank by buying it.

Here's the Washington Post's take on this excellent new obligation you and I are about to take on :

The Bush administration is hammering out the final details of a plan that would allow the government to inject cash into banks in exchange for ownership stakes in an effort to shore up confidence in the faltering financial system, according to officials and sources who have been in contact with the Treasury Department.

I do not want to own Bob's Bank. Or any other bank. Especially if the geniuses who have been running the bank have run the bank into the ground.

What am I missing here?

If you read the WashPost's report on what the Administration is now proposing, you and I are going to be on the hook for the banks' bad loans. But, because our money is not THEIR money, the Post reports "What is less clear is what strings would be attached, particularly regarding the compensation of top executives at participating banks."

Here's my plan for compensation of top execs at participating banks: Nothing. Nada. Zero. Bubkis. Not a farthing.

If those executives don't like my compensation plan? They can quit. They can leave in a huff. If they don't like that, they can leave - in the words of the Marx Brothers - they can leave in a minute an a huff.

We'll get someone else. How about the guy who slices the bagels at the breakfast place on Pennsylvania Avenue? He cannot possibly do any worse than the slug with an MBA from Harvard.

Am I wrong?

I want the people who got us into this mess drawn and quartered. I do not want them to go to the Spa at some five star hotel in California on my dime.

Or yours.