You are using an outdated browser.
Please upgrade your browser
and improve your visit to our site.
Skip Navigation

An Alternative Bailout Plan

Yes, yes, spend $700 billion buying mortgage-backed securities and other distressed assets, but instead of just leaving them sitting around, put them to work. Specifically, dress them in pirate hats and tell them to behave like Keith Richards.

Or, I suppose if you want to be cheap about it, you can just opt for paying Johnny Depp $56 million (yes, that's a record) to star in Pirates of the Caribbean 4, standing next to cardboard cutouts of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley because the flesh-and-blood ones no longer fit in the budget. The story will reportedly involve Captain Jack Sparrow's search for the fountain of youth, presumably in order to grant himself a few more decades in which to spend his money.

--Christopher Orr