What should happen with the CEOs of these big corporations, if in the future the government has to bail them out? If it were up to the Democrats and their financial reform bill, those CEOs, top management and shareholders would be fired. That's according to White House Economic Adviser Austan Goolsbee.

One Republican, Senator Bob Corker, is trying to out-populist the Democrats on this one. He wants to propose a change to financial reform legislation to require federal intervention to take back the personal wealth of CEOs at failing institutions. This is otherwise known as a "claw back" measure. Corkers claw back provision would take away the personal earnings for the past five years of the CEOs of failed institutions.

How about clawing back the earnings of some of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac execs who got us into this mess? Then maybe we can claw back the earnings of politicians who make stupid decisions that lead to economic disaster.