Every day the government makes new mistakes or discovers new economic consequences of their past errors. Arbitrary Vote brings you the country's biggest economic bloopers.
t Blooper of the week Blooper of the month
9/18/09 - Another $100 billion bond briefcase incident
This is the 2nd one of these little mysterious events in two months. If fake, the activity is remeniscent of WWII era bond hoaxes undertaken to shatter confidence. If real, we're getting dumped.
9/16/09 - Unintended consequences from another government program
But wait - They were just touting Cash for Clunkers as a heroic government program...They even extended it because it worked so well in its first round. The strange thing was that only 2 of the top ten cars purchased were American cars. Aside from that, I wonder if they thought sales would be sustained and all demand would not fall off a cliff after the program expired. Seems like any smart (or dumb) economist would know that.
And by the way, those recent puffed-up retail sales numbers will soon be deflated back down to their appropriate levels in the next report.
9/14/09 - Obama brings 0 years of business experience to the table
When a president uses the term "profit and earnings ratio" instead of "price to earnings ratio" (as he did back in March), he is obviously the perfect person to direct the creation of new regulation that adds plenty of new loopholes for financial exploitation by Wall Street and the government.
First new financial regulation idea: Bring the U.S. government's leverage ratio to below that of the many "wreckless and unchecked" Wall Street firms.
Tariffs are a fine way to add to economic troubles. Perfect timing to take an extra swing of the hammer on the nail in the U.S. auto industry's coffin. Sure, tire labor will benefit for a short time, but consumers and auto companies certainly won't. Way to support the unions that caused the auto industry's woes!
By the way, do protectionist wars against our greatest debt holder while we are buried in debt and economic crisis make a lotta sense? Do protectionist wars ever make sense? History books seem to tell us no. Obama to hit China with tough tariff on tires - MarketWatch
Earlier in the year, the original White House forecast for unemployment was 8.1% for 2009. I guess the 1.6% currently unemployed above that estimate to reach a 9.7% rate must be because of the saved 1 million jobs they mention...Or perhaps the figure could instead be 500k jobs saved and 500k jobs created from Obama's stimulus. Either way the math seems to equate to losing 1.6% more of the workforce than they expected well before the 2009 deadline. White House Reports Stimulus Saved One Million Jobs - The Wall Street Journal
Cheap plan. Ought to be able to get it done with these numbers. Pulling out the calculator and punching in $900 billion, divided by the "45 million uninsured", divided by the 10 years this money is supposed to cover, I get $2,000 in health care costs covered per currently uninsured person per year.
Oh, but wait I forgot that the money will be used for various cost saving efforts to create a self-sustaining plan to cover the uninsured and anybody else who wants it. I also forgot that there has never been a health care plan designed by the government that didn't run at least 2 or 3 times the amount projected upfront. I also forgot that the the government has never run anything successfully - not even a simple business like delivering letters to mailboxes with no threat of competition. Must be really forgetful, cause I also forgot that the government doesn't have anymore money.
Shocking. I especially like the quote, "The country's greatest weakness continues to be related to its macroeconomic stability." Very insightful - except that they left out the part about government intervention ruining the microeconomic system as well.
There's a tinge of a green shoot flare in this article. Additionally, the first paragraph seems to assume that we're recovering. I would think the "26-year high" bit combined with a continued rise in unemployment and the 16.8% U-6 BLS unemployment number should have clouded over all of that.
Also, seems like the Obama administration could be on track to make another revision to their unemployment assumptions included in their little budget.
It is battle royale when the host of a parasite is also a parasite. They must resort to consuming one another until the main host (the private, productive economy) revives.
8/31/09 - Barney Frank, AKA "Two-Face", squares off on Batnanke
The illustrious Frank will throw all of his powers at getting this bill done, and surely it won't be watered down from Ron Paul's original intentions. However, Frank "wants to be sure that some parts of the Fed are adequately protected".
8/27/09 - The FDIC, banks, and Treasury have your back
Hmmm...Let's do a little math. A low estimate is that there are 416 troubled banks with 150 to 300 expected to fail by year end. By the second quarter of this year, troubled bank assets were up to about $300 billion from $220 billion in the first quarter. The FDIC has $10.4 billion left in its insurance fund (i.e. 0.22% of insured deposits while the congressional minimum is 1.15%). It has $21.6 billion in its reserves. Another $18 billion might be provided through an extra fee tacked on to the banks' regular fees. Seems like $50 billion isn't all that much when we're talking hundreds of billions of dollars.
So, Bair says they don't need to borrow, "but never say never" - and your money is safe 'cause the U.S. Federal Government/Treasury will back it up with their $500 billion credit line to the FDIC so you don't lose a penny...And of course the Treasury has $500 billion extra lying around...No printing necessary.
In other words, you won't lose a penny, but each dollar you have will be worth a penny.
Elect a celebrity governor, have him sign a bunch of state-owned junk, and sell it all on e-bay.
Let's see - Looks like the highest price item, an autographed state clunker, is running at about $1,600 a pop...Only 16 million more to go to pay off the $26 billion state budget gap!
Hopefully the Obama administration is listening so we can apply this innovation to the federal deficit as well.
"This is spin, and nothing more. The lower estimate is strictly the result of the administration massaging their budget assumptions," former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin wrote in a memo to House Republican Leader John Boehner.
"I'm stunned at how hard they have worked to bury this," Holtz-Eakin said of the White House's budget estimate timing.
The Bat-Signal shines brightly in the sky tonight! Batnanke is the only man that can save us...Along with his trusty sidekick, Timothy Geithner - AKA "Robbin'".
8/21/09 - The whole entire world was nearly destroyed!
It's a bird...It's a plane...It's Supernanke! Be thankful to our planet's superhero. He has pushed off disaster to a day not far away - and a bigger disaster it will be. Hopefully he can call in Spiderman to help for the next round.
Blooper of the week 
Blooper of the month
Bernanke says it's over. It must be over.
It is battle royale when the host of a parasite is also a parasite. They must resort to consuming one another until the main host (the private, productive economy) revives.
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