The owner of the shuttered Hahneman hospital in my hometown of Philadelphia wants to charge the city a mind-boggling $400,000 per month in rent for its use in adding to the supply of hospital beds.

This man, Joel Freedman, is a great example of CEO’s who should remember the words of a young president taking office: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country!”. Does he really need to squeeze every dime from the city while people are dying? Did the thought of donating use of the building really never occur to him?

While airlines, cruise companies and hotel chains urgently lobby Congress for help, does it not occur to them that unused airplanes could reduce the shipping time for vitally needed supplies from China? That empty cruise ships and hotel rooms could serve as makeshift hospital?

It apparently also does not occur to them that these gestures would be a way of earning the enormous bailouts they are frantically asking for? Or to realize these gestures might put some of their employees back to work?