A Letter from Timothy Geithner

Please get back to me as soon as possible the president has been on Tour ensuring that all treasury's beneficiaries receives their legal payment been issued to them, so try as much as you can and make sure you get the legal papers ready so that it can be signed on his arrival to Your state so you can be paid on time.

Dear Mr. Geithner:

I am as pleased as punch that you will --- after all these years --- be rewarding me so generously for my many many contributions to your Treasury Department. May I say, without any rancor whatsoever, that it is about time that you came to the aid of us Senior Citizens who have been contributing so faithfully to your Department and our country right or wrong.

In my own case, as your records will show, you began receiving payments from me when I took my first job as a "soda jerk" in a Rexall drugstore just up from my house in the old part of Muncie, Indiana. Between the banana splits and chocolate creme pies, I was in love with Marcie Goosling, a sweet red-head who I'm sure you would have liked bussing (if not bustling) as much as I did in those heady days of 1950.

Alas, I didn't marry my sweetheart as I was supposed to but instead went off to protect my country from the Communists of Korea where again as your records will show I served faithfully for three years and came back more or less in one piece except for something they call PSTD that wakes me up scaring the hell out of my family pardon my language. Dr. Gray says it will get better if I keep taking the pills he has had to prescribe for me.

Fortunately when I returned to Muncie, I was taken in hand by my uncle Hermann who ran an auto repair shop and soon I was a mechanic and could fix anything that came down the pike. Still can for that matter, if you have a 1956 Plymouth coupe with whitewalls if you'd like me to look over I'd do it just for the joy of doing it and getting my hands dirty if you know what I mean.

I figure if I added up all I contributed to you and your treasury department in withholdings --- starting with $9.57/wk when I was working for Uncle Hermann, getting up to over $8,500/year when I finally retired, it would show something like $150,000+ of withholdings from me over the past fifty years.

Thus money that might have stayed with me has been sent off to help you keep Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Citibank, and American International Group from going bust in the last few years. I hope they appreciate what you did for them. I am sure that Bank of America, especially, would be put out if you had let it disappear from the face of the earth like Lehmann. For one thing, if B of A was no longer here who would there be to remind me every week if not every couple of days that I am so far behind on my credit card payments to them and that it grieves them mightily to have to stick it to me with another $45 late fee on my account with them. Just blame it in my wife Joellen who thinks we have to still help our five grown kids and our thirteen noisy grandchildren. For your information, three of our children have houses that are today's lingo underwater, waterboarded no doubt by those self-same people who ran Citibank et al into the ground as they got bonuses for their good works. You really did us a service by bailing them out Tim. Welfare for the rich, they say. Thanks, Tim.

Well, that is about all there is to tell you. I await with bated breath the $5,000,000 you promised me today although I hope it comes sooner rather than later. One of the distractions of a house underwater filled with children is that the children eventually come to live with you so they don't drown. Or maybe I should better say live with me: I hope they don't arrive on your doorstep anytime soon. There are several of them underfoot even as we speak, two, Betsy and her twin Brenda, just getting out of the hospital and another one of them (Michael, I think, or is it Bobby?) who is letting me have the use of a half an old orange slice I gave him - - - he's trying to shove it up my nose. Hurry with that check, Tim. The hospital bills are out of hand, and we are getting older faster than we ever thought possible. You too.