Bush and Congress finally agreed on the best way to give away $700 billion in our tax money to keep Wall Street afloat, and the bill is expected to pass this week.

I looked over the bill and it seems to have all kinds of flaws and loopholes, but the one thing I wanted to address here is how we’re supposed to get our money back. The way it works is this: the Treasury Department will buy money-losing assets from Wall Street firms (mostly bad bets placed on mortgages). That way, when the market turns around, the government can sell those assets back to Wall Street, perhaps at a profit, thus getting back some of that money for the taxpayer.

The plan also includes a rule against new “golden parachutes” for executives.

I think it’s a red herring: why would Wall Street buy back assets  it almost drowned in from the government? And if the Treasury can actually sell them at a profit, do we all get big, fat checks for the tax money we put in?

If you had a chance to tell Congress what you think about the plan, what would you say?

The FBI is investigating whether executives at some of the companies that the government is bailing out committed fraud and helped create the financial crisis that the country is now in.

The government is going to spend $700 billion to bail out Wall Street — that’s $700 billion of your money — and they say it’s necessary to make sure that the whole economy doesn’t go into a depression.

But what if they do find fraud? Who will go to jail and will they have to pay any restitution to taxpayers for costing all of us so much money? And how much are executives on Wall Street going to continue getting paid if their companies are being helped out with money you worked for? Is it fair for them to make more than you?

If you were running the investigation, who would you target, and how is the country ever going to be able to pay off all its debt after lending Wall Street almost $1 trillion?

Is it me or are ATM fees out of control? I mean, it’s one thing to pay $4 a gallon for gas, but 7.5 percent just to withdraw own money is ridic. I got hit up like that on Sunday in Chicago. I learned a long time ago to use my debit card most of the time while traveling (but tell the cashier ‘credit’ instead of debit to avoid transaction fees when I buy stuff). Beforehand, I withdraw enough money for food and water on the road and cab fares.

But I ran out of cash in Chicago and had to use the hotel’s ATM. I was at a Sheraton so I figured they’d have a major bank ATM and I wouldn’t get juxed as much as I would by one of those independent machines. Psh. Want that $100 you deposited? That’ll be $104.50, bruh. Thanks.

I would’ve gotten hit by the machine twice but it was down when I checked out. I had to force the cabbie to take a credit card (they hate to do that because they have to take the receipts somewhere to get the money – not as easy as just getting cash). I still ended up paying Chase a $3 fee to withdraw 40 bucks – a 7.5 percent transaction fee just to withdraw my cash. Shame on y’all. 

What’s crazy is I chose my bank – PNC – to avoid ATM fees altogether. They have branches and ATMs all over Cincinnati and are based in Pittsburgh where my family lives. West of Ohio, though, not so much.

What’s the highest ATM fee you’ve ever had to pay and what do you do to avoid them?

With the economy doing as poorly as it is, there’s no surprise that more folks are having trouble with bill collectors. This story from CNNmoney.com shares some of the horror stories, but the more interesting thing is the tips they share about what bill collectors can and can’t do:

• They can’t harass you (repeatedly calling, threatening you, being belligerent, etc);
• They can’t lie to you (telling you you owe more than you do, or that they can put you in jail or that they’re lawyers when they’re just bill collectors)
• They can’t use “unfair practices” like depositing postdated checks too early.

It’s good to be informed about your rights as a borrower if a bill collector is harassing you. The problem is, everyone knows somebody who has been a victim of an overly-aggressive bill collector, which means either too many people don’t know their rights or that the government isn’t enforcing the rules on them as sternly as they should.

When was the last time you got a call from a bill collector, and how did you handle it?

So you go to buy your first house: it’s a great time because you’ve got money saved up, home prices are down and someone else’s foreclosure just might be your good fortune! That is until the company that was foreclosing on the previous owner fails to check and see that the house was sold and and you’ve moved in, hires some professional jackers to break in and take ALL your ish (including the food out the fridge) while you’re at work, and then allegedly gives all your stuff away.

And did I happen to mention that all this just might be legal? It happened to a Nigerian family now living in Texas (why people move down there, I’ve no mortal idea. Just a bad idea.) Check out the story here.

The good thing is the family is suing and hopefully a judge or jury will be VERY punitive for what happened to them. The bad news is there’s a local prosecutor who doesn’t think anything illegal happened because “a terrible mistake is not necessarily a crime.”

WTF? This guy can’t be serious. This is a case that falls under the “it could happen to anybody” category and as such, you’d think law enforcement would look at it with that level of gravity. Guess maybe not.