Dumbest Moments in Business 2009...Midyear Edition
by Fortune by CNN Money.com
our ohh so bright and wonderfully great administration and government has made 4 of the top 10 Dumbest moments in Business 2009 OHH YEAH WE ARE ONLY HALF WAY THROUGH.
Go TEAM OBAMA.
6. Not-So-Stressful Stress Tests
Phew: On May 8, the government revealed the results of the `stress tests' and we learned that the nation's biggest banks were in okay shape to handle "adverse" scenarios -- like, say, 8.9% unemployment. Thank heavens for that, because just one day later the Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate hit -- you guessed it -- 8.9%.
Nearly two months later we're at 9.4%...and counting.
8. U.S. Debt is 'Safe.' Seriously. Stop Laughing
Following a speech at Peking University on his first trip to China as Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner was asked to share his thoughts about the safety of Chinese investments in the United States. They are "VERY safe," he quickly asserted.
At which point the audience burst out laughing. Apparently, the audience was amused not only by the answer's substance, but by the flat "don't worry your little young heads about it" certainty with which Geithner insisted that China's U.S. debt holdings were A-OK. Because as even a group of Chinese college kids understood, that's just not as clear as the Treasury Secretary insisted it was.
Photo: Shawna Shepherd/CNN
In February, President Obama used his first White House press conference to alert the public to a momentous event. "Tomorrow, my Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, will be announcing some very clear and specific plans for how we are going to start loosening up credit once again," he said.
But when Geithner appeared at Treasury the next day, on Feb. 10, he offered few plans of any sort, let alone clear and specific ones, which helps to explain the stock market's 5% plunge that day. Since then Geithner has loosened up, with the help of a media trainer -- and the market has bounced back. Coincidence?
10. Obama's spending cuts...a ways to go
You're eight months behind on your $500,000 mortgage, your bank is demanding a meeting, and you respond by telling them there's nothing to worry about. Why not? Because you just saved $40 by canceling your newspaper subscription.
That, essentially, is the kind of fast budget talk President Obama trotted out in April when he made a big to-do out of instructing his cabinet to cut $100 million from their budgets.
$100 million may sound like a big number, but the cut would only reduce the United States' projected $1.8 trillion budget deficit by 0.005% -- less than what you'd save for your mortgage by giving up the daily paper.
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