The hoopla is back with the news of a new, improved $700 billion dollar bailout.  Listening to the sounds emanating from the mouths of those who want to be our leaders, I keep hearing the words “Main Street” contrasted with “Wall Street.”  Ah, they love to come up with catch-phrases that grab people’s hearts and minds.

But the words “Main Street,” despite their fine juxtaposition with the dreaded “Wall Street,” make me cringe.  First, the implication that these people are fighting for the people in small towns that still have a Main Street strikes me as unbearably disingenuous.  Main Street died long ago, when the Mall of America was built, together with its innumerable relatives across the country. 

Everyone who is not “Wall Street” isn’t necessarily “Main Street.”  In fact, I doubt that anyone is anymore.  In their effort to pigeonhole the rest of us in a single catch-phrase, they reflect the fact that they don’t have the slightest clue who the rest of us are, or that we aren’t one monolithic interest group rooting for our saviors to remember us. 

During the debate, Obama described “Main Street” as being police officers, teachers and nurses.  Notice anything special about these occupations, aside from their shared love of unions?  They all tend to be public employees.  Do we all work for the government?  He didn’t mention farmers.  He didn’t mention lawyers.  On the flip side, McCain didn’t even try to articulate who exactly he thinks “Main Street” might be, but then he hasn’t seen Main Street from any of his many homes in generations.  How would he know?

To prove how much they care about Main Street, we learn (with sufficient plausible deniability that when this plan goes bust by about noon today, they can claim they never really liked it) that there has been some amorphous non-quantifiable limitation placed on the “golden parachute” available to any CEO who accepts the government’s bailout.  (See the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, at Section 111, page 30.  Notice how this law has no cute acronym?) 

The phrase “golden parachute,” like “Main Street,” was crafted to create a pejorative impression.  The fact that our protectors in government have chosen to fix on this term hardly seems accidental.  It’s the Orwellian use of a phrase that they hope will capture the very small, very confused minds of the denizens of Main Street and, in a mindless flash, assure them that our government is doing all of this to protect them.  “Golden parachute” is bad.  We hear you, Main Street. (This is the point where I can hear them chuckling in the background). We fixed it.  Vote for us.

The problem is that the money has been paid.  The ten million dollar bonus checks already went out, were negotiated, and have since been put to good use at the shower curtain store.  The stock options have vested.  The incentive payments are already built in, and ready to kick in as soon as the stock price hits their mark.  And as for the dreaded “golden parachute,” which phrase is actually used in the law, there is a room full of gnomes working feverishly to come up with another, maybe even cuter, name that will circumvent this law altogether.

Don’t kid yourself.  There will be no CEOs on line at the soup kitchen.

But all this does lend itself to a finer understanding of just what our politicians mean when they utter the phrase “Main Street” over and over.  “Main Street” is a euphemism for people too stupid, too dense, too naive, too uninitiated to recognize when their politicians are treating them like the ignorant lemmings they believe them to be. 

Just keep saying that they’re doing all of this for us, for Main Street, and we’ll believe it. 

This new plan is the proverbial camel, a horse built by committee.  It tries to accommodate all the political fingers that stuck themselves in, providing at least enough to craft a sound bite to prove to their “Main Street” constituents that they are there for them, that they love them, so that next election round they won’t be skewered when this turns out to be a debacle. 

How many people will go beyond the sound bite and read the law?  Twelve?  Maybe Fifteen?  Not too many, that’s for sure.  So it’s all about the sound bite, and “golden parachute” makes for a pretty good one.  But I asked for the bonus back, and no one in Washington heard me.  Not just the parachute, but the billions paid out to fail.  No one is talking about those billions.  And the smart money on Wall Street knows enough to keep a low profile and negotiate the check as quickly as possible.

So as each of our candidates, our President, our congressional leaders, utter the word “Main Street” going forward, make no mistake who they are talking about.  The lemmings.  If you agree, perhaps you should get out of line and avoid the cliff at the end of Main Street, because you don’t have a parachute. 

And if you’re wondering about alternative uses for the $700 billion earmarked for the bailout, which would equate to $3,100 for each American, stop wasting brain cells.  There will be no bonus for being Main Street. 

Update:  It’s 10 a.m.  Do you know how your portfolio is doing?  Apparently, Wall Street isn’t impressed with Washington Street any more than Main Street.  Dow Jones Industrial Average down 292 at the moment.  Glad to see that our $700 bil isn’t wasted.

Update 2:  Last week, J.P. Morgan Chase bought WaMu.  Today, it has just been announced the Citigroup bought Wachovia in an FDIC brokered deal for $1 per share.  Had I known it was going to sell so cheaply, I would have considered it.

So what are the chances that Main Streeters will reach a sympathetic ear when calling Citibank customer service to renegotiate their Wachovia paper?  They used to be so nice to their customers, those deeply concerned Citibankers.

Update 3:  You’re probably asking yourself, but what would Sarah Palins have to say about all this?  Glad you asked.  From David Post at VC :

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

You can breath now.  Breath.