I had just assumed the Paulson Bailout was a fait accompli. Yet as I write, it is still uncertain whether this heist will go through. The House Republicans gave Paulson a surprising stick in the eye. The longer the delay, the less urgent the crisis seems, and the closer the election--some figures say the public is writing Congress 9-to-1 against this thing.

And yet, the Paulson Plan involves such fantastic sums of money, surely they can just buy it. We're talking about voting themselves an extra $700 billion, and that's just for starters! Since the public easily tolerates cost increases of oh, say, 200%, that means with the precedent value, etc., this should yield $3 trillion easily over the next five years. If the federal money flows evenly over the whole period, it has a PDV of $2.7 trillion if we discount at 5%.

Now, there are 535 members of Congress (100 senators plus 435 "representatives"). But there are also lots of other interested parties. For simplicity, assume there are 1,000 members of the creme de la creme who stand to pocket this money.

The size of the pot allows them EACH to get $2.7 billion, yes with a B. You object and say I'm overlooking all sorts of slippage, the need to buy off newspapers and TV networks to give friendly coverage, blah blah blah. Fair enough, we'll bump it up to 10,000 people who will split the loot.

Hmm, that still works out to $270 million per person. How many people in Congress would be willing to lose the upcoming election for $270 million? I'm betting a lot.

But don't worry, you troubled politicians. Just ask the remaining big guns on Wall Street to engineer a run on the banks, so that President Bush has to actually close them.

The public will give you permission to spend $2 trillion before Christmas once they have a few days--with closed banks--to think about what they did.

Of course, the people running Goldman and JP Morgan will demand a bigger cut, in order for them to put on a good show. But it's worth it, right? You can easily get $100 million apiece, down the road when the dust settles.

Back to Free Advice readers: Folks, I am not formally predicting that the above will happen. But it seems entirely plausible to me; look at what these rulers did after 9/11, how they took advantage of that situation. Well with the Paulson Plan, they would get far more power over the economy; it's not just about the money.

I realize I will look foolish if nothing like this happens, but nonetheless, I urge everyone to get at least a few hundred dollars worth of silver coins. And I'm not talking about hunks of metal with the imprint of Napoleon. No, I'm talking about things like US quarters from 1964 or earlier, that are composed of 90% silver.

I do not think the entire financial infrastructure is in any danger of collapsing. The government wants you to think that, just like they want you to be in constant fear of another 9/11. It's no fun taking over a country if the monetary system doesn't work.

So let's be clear, I am not urging the accumulation of silver coins because I'm predicting the dollar will cease to circulate as money anytime soon. What I am saying is that, if the banks are closed for a few days--with no ATM withdrawals allowed either--some of you might avoid a real pinch, if you have a few hundred dollars in "real" money. It's true that you will have to find someone else knowledgeable about the silver content of pre-1965 US quarters, but people can use Google. They will learn up pretty quick if the banks are all closed.