Three Cheers for Rick Santelli! Don't Drink the Water, or What if We Started a Revolution and Everybody Came?

Every morning while I am getting ready to go to work, I watch Squawkbox on CNBC. I especially look forward to the comments of the on-air commentator from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Rick Santelli. He is a straight-forward, no-nonsense kinda guy. I can always count on him for some clear-headed comments amid the current cultural fuzz. He is also a good showman, and fun to watch. I find myself talking over the ironing board back to the TV when he is on. "Yeah, that's right - you tell 'em, Rick." That sort of thing.

This morning, he outdid himself. Why? Because of his disgust at the climate in this country, which he said "rewards bad behaviour." He called for this administration, who he said is "so big on computers and technology" to put up a website to have people vote on the Internet, as a referendum, to see "if we really wanna subsidize the losers" or would we want to reward people who actually "carry the water" rather than just "drink the water!"

Santelli then announced his plans for a "Chicago Tea Party!" He said to all the capitalists, perhaps only half facetiously, who want to show up at Lake Michigan in July (on the 4th, presumably), he's going to start organizing. What will he dump into the lake? Santelli offered the idea of mortgage derivatives.

I have a better idea.

In 1773, the Sons of Liberty dumped 45 tons of tea brought into the colonies on the East India Company's ship, the Dartmouth, into the Boston Harbor. This symbolic act eventually proved to be the catalyst for the American Revolutionary War, which resulted in our independence from Great Britian - probably the single best example of philosophy in action - EVER.

I say Santelli should dump 45 tons of paper instead.

A ream of bond paper is 500 sheets, and weighs about 5 pounds. Which means that 1,588 sheets of paper, a little over three reams, weights a little more than 15 pounds; 15.88 to be exact (1,588 pages divided by 500 pages per ream equals 3.176 reams. Multiply that by 5 pounds per ream and you get 15.88 pounds for 1,588 pages). One ton, or 2,000 pounds, divided by 15.88 pounds per 1,588 pages, equals 125.944 three-ream sets. Multiply that by 45, and you get 56,667 three-ream sets.

Why did I pick the original number of 1,588 sheets of paper? That is the number of pages in President Obama's "Stimulus Package," that's why.

I say Santelli and his fellow capitalists (shall we call them the "New Sons of Liberty?") should dump 56,667 copies of that so-called stimulus monstrosity into Lake Michigan. It would be a symbolic act, as was the original. But it might just be the start of something big. Hell, it might even be the "beginning of the end."

Count me in.

Click here to see video.