The good news is, and it is all relative, but today the major markets in Europe and Wall Street managed a healthy bounce back after yesterday's worldwide disaster. True, most of the rebound can be attributed to confidence based on statements from both political corners on Capitol Hill, that a consensus would be reached and a new bailout plan would be passed shortly.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones managed a 485 point gain and closed up 4.68% while the tech-heavy NASDAQ was up 98 points to close at 2082.

Congress must be feeling pretty good today, especially as it is taking a 2-day break to recognize Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which is also coincidently the end of Ramadan, neither is a Federally recognized holiday, so the rest of the country is busy at work, including many of the bruised traders on Wall Street, most of whom, it seems cut their losses by more than half.

The trouble is that the $1 trillion problem, despite the optimism in the markets today, still remains. How is Congress going to come together and agree on a new bailout plan? your guess is a s good as mine. Whatever it is, it is clear that it has to take into account the average Joe on Main Street as well as the financial big wigs and institutions on Wall Street.

This got me thinking, even though that might be considered somewhat dangerous, but I think it is a good idea to brainstorm and throw things out there, no matter how ridiculous they might seem, especially if you consider the current predicament we find ourselves in, having foolishly relied on elected officials and the so called 'experts.'

Given that the Bush administration—led by Paulson, Bernanke, and Dodd—are hell-bent on nationalizing American banks with their $700 billion bailout—added to the $314 billion already allotted for Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and AIG putting the total at a $1.14 trillion and change—I think Congress and the American electorate might consider tabling the following scenario:

Since this is in essence our money, I suggest that we divide the proposed $1.14 trillion by the total number of US taxpayers—134,362,678 as of 2005—and then simply send everyone a nice check for $7,546. No need to trouble the banks with all their fees, or the hard working Wall Street financiers at all. Bernanke and company have already done the mathematics and come up with the appropriate figures and deemed that we can afford to do this, we just need to reallocate the recipients.

As with professional football, maybe there should be a salary cap on the refunds, you know, if you make more than $500,000 then you don't get a check, since you probably don't really need help stimulating the economy, so let's assume it could be rounded-up to $8,000 for the rest of us.

The US taxpayer could even save the cost of mailing out the checks and just have $8k deducted from our income tax returns. Works for me. Mr Bush already did a test-pilot with his $300 'stimulation' check scenario last year, so it's not like it's completely out of whack with government policy.

I don't know about you, but I think that it would certainly ease the political tension on the Hill and it will definitely stimulate the beleaguered US economy on Main Street, who knows, it may even reduce the vitriolic dialog and temporarily unite everyone, perhaps even allowing Mr Bush to ride off into the sunset on a high note.

As an added bonus the taxpayers wouldn't have to feel disdainful about rewarding poorly run companies that were completely fiscally irresponsible. In addition we would also avoid paying out $500,000 a year salaries to all the CEO's. I'm all for the notion of the free market taking care of itself in that department.

As I said, it's just an idea.