The first time I heard about the Wall Street protests I thought they'd be over in a couple of weeks. Liberals just don't have the staying power of psychotic tea party members (not that there were as many as they said there were. It was more like 1500 that moved around a lot, rather than millions).

But I recently heard they're moving to other cities. One is coming to Minneapolis. They're using the social network to get the word out. When 400 families control half the wealth in the country and 15% of Americans (the richest country in the world) are at or below the poverty line, something must be done.

However, the Tea Party does have a point. We don't want to be the next Greece or the next Europe for that matter (they never spent as much stimulus money as they should have). The debt is too high (Although the Republicans are responsible for most of it), and we can't continue to spurge on the budget at a 1.5 trillion dollar rate above what we take in. The Stimulus wasn't the problem, though. Wall Street agreed we needed one as did most of the reputable economists (Liberty College doesn't count. They believe the dinosaurs and the cavemen were co-existent).

Before I get to my main idea, I'd just like to say that those Wall Street loyalists need an agenda and a leader, but not a Abby Hoffman type leader. More of a recent graduate of Harvard Law school leader who looks like John F. Kennedy. No offense to the ladies. As a matter of fact the most recent spokesman I heard from was a woman, and she sounded smart. Anyway the numbers of protestors are going up and this thing is spreading. The woman said they were inspired by the Egyptian demonstrations.

A smart thing to do would be for the corporations to talk to the demonstrators, that is instead of raising debit card fees five dollars a month and charging $450 for overseas baggage that weights too much. And, oh yeah, why the hell does gas still cost $3.35 a gallon? Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have got to get out of the speculation business. We saved their butts; they owe it to us.

So here's the main idea. My boy Warren Buffet needs to start a foundation rather like the Rockefeller Foundation to pay off the national debt. He could contribute a billion dollars say (Hey, he's already given away half of his money to the poor) and encourage his fat cat buddies to do the same thing. Pretty soon we'd have a pretty good lump of money, but like the Rockefeller Foundation you could only touch the interest. You could have offshoot Buffet Foundations in all the states where people like Jim Pohlad (owner of the Minnesota Twins who took out a full page ad along with 200 of his fellow businessmen claiming he didn't pay enough taxes) could contribute money toward the national debt. If all 50 states did it, it could be huge. And the Goops couldn't claim it was taxes.  Meanwhile this money would be invested, raising even more cash. That's how we do it with the Minnesota Teachers' Retirement Association (although it hasn't been working so well lately.

I'm one of these people who are close to that 15% poverty rate, but I still manage to save money because I never do anything or go anyplace, and I don't have any kids. So I would definitely contribute to a Warren Buffet or  a Jim Pohlad pay down the debt fund, and I'll bet there are a lot of other people who would to. If we can afford to pay a politician like Michelle Bachmann (maybe that's too polite a term) millions to run for office, why not pay down the debt instead. We also always seem to scrape together money when there's a typhon in Japan or a hurricane in New Orleans.

The United States still has a lot more money than China (Look up your own statistics), but they don't get involved in foreign wars, and they save it. They've got two trillion dollars in reserves. If Godless communists can do it, so can we.