In a closed emergency session, the Federal Reserve has decided to bail out individual investor Marty Gaal. Rumors of the bailout have been circling for months, leading to a precipitous decline in Marty Gaal's dinner offers and weekend getaway excursions.
"Marty Gaal is an important US institution that cannot be allowed to fail," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said, at a hastily convened news conference on Marty Gaal's front doorstep.
Gaal, 36, has run up in excess of $10 billion dollars in debt and IOUs over the last four years through multiple credit cards, home improvement loans, home equity loans, bad checks, flimflam, and general chicanery.
"Damn that guy!" Said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson from his morning breakfast conference. "I knew we should have done something when his debt level surpassed the five billion mark in January."
"The markets are acting like a bailout is inevitable," said Tom Tucker, managing director of Tom Tucker Ratings, an independent credit ratings firm.
Tucker said he believed the federal government would need to help pump about $8 billion into Marty Gaal's multiple bank accounts, possibly through a government guarantee rather than through a direct injection of capital.
"We believe Treasury is going to be forced to act within the next couple of weeks," he added. "Probably some time after Labor Day, when investors are back from vacations so that the bailout has the biggest possible positive impact."
"Without government support, important companies like Citibank, Visa, American Express, Lowe's, Victoria's Secret, Paulie the Loanshark, Boston Beer Company, and Gap may fail. The fallout would be horrendous."
Gaal, who recently laid off his entire domestic staff of ten and sold six of his ten Porsches, said he would be happy to get onto some sort of payment plan.
"If they can lock me in at 3% for forty years or something like that, sure, I'll pay it all back," he said, while munching on a candy bar. "It's not like I'm not good for it."
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You forgot to mention that, "With financial conditions already quite fragile, the sudden, unanticipated failure of Marty Gaal would have led to a sharp unwinding of positions that could have severely shaken the confidence of market participants," Bernanke said. "The broader economy could hardly have remained immune from such severe financial disruptions."
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