Wal-Street

There has been an email flying around about how BIG Wal-mart really is, and at the end, it suggests that Wal-Mart should bail out Wall Street. Well, that got me to thinking, from a particular point of view, here’s what would really happen if Wal-Mart bailed out Wall Street

You will no loner need that stock broker. Forget about commissions, maintenance costs, and brokerage fees, if you wanted to buy stock it would cost you a flat fee of $1.88 ($1.70 if you want to open a Wal-Mart credit card account).

You could pick up your stocks when you pick up dinner. Grab a pizza, a bottle of coke, and 10 shares of General Electric and still check out in the express lane.

If the day traders plan to stay in business, they better have some capital. There would be no more trading on margin (or temporary credit). They don’t offer Lay-away in stores, don’t expect them to do it on stocks.

Selling short and selling long would be a thing of the past – the price is posted, take it or leave it.

There would be no pre-opening or after hours trading, they are open 24 hours a day, you can buy and sell 24 hours a day.

There would be no more Mortgage Backed securities, if you wanted a mortgage, here is how it would work. They would sell you a mortgage, at 1% interest (fixed) for ONE house per family.

They would loan you the mortgage based on THEIR estimate of the houses value (not some crazy California tree hugging hippie’s three million dollar double wide trailer value).

If you wanted more than 1 mortgage (say for a rental property) then you would have to get a business membership and get your mortgages in bulk from Sam’s Club.

If you defaulted on your mortgage, they would re-posses your house. I’m not talking about kicking you out, they would physically come and remove all traces of your house and take it with them. They can set up an entire store … in a tent … in a day … after a hurricane … without any electricity around … you think they can’t find a way to come get your house?

The SEC would be replaced by their Emergency Operations Team. They had trucks of supplies and equipment outside New Orleans within 24 hours of Katrina – it took the government 6 weeks – need I say more?

And finally – they would set the price of oil to OPEC, not the other way around. They would tell them how much they were going to buy and how much they were going to pay. If OPEC failed to meet their price, they would buy GM, Ford, and Chrysler, make a car that runs on recycled card-board, and put one in every home for a few hundred bucks.

But, being Wal-Mart, the cars would only move when every seat was filled with a passenger.