Missing $6.6 Billion Not An Accounting Error, Return to Gold Standard a Part of Tea Party Platform, Mitt Romney Takes Another Hit

And Other News That Needs Commenting On

$6.6 Billion in Missing Cash May Not Be An Accounting Error.    In 2003-04 the U. S. apparently loaded up a bunch of cargo planes bound for Iraq with cash, lots of cash, about $12 billion in total.  Soon $6.6 billion of the cash went missing and according to the LA Times, it was thought to be an accounting error.

An Accounting Error? No.  An accounting error is when Joe in Accounts Receivable transposes an entry and the books don’t balance and everyone has to stay late to find the error and then Joe has to pay for drinks at Happy Hour and everyone calls him a dumb ass.  You don’t lose $6.6 billion in an accounting error.

The story goes on to say that maybe, just maybe the money was stolen.  Gee, you think?

With the problems of unemployment, the budget deficit, the need to change the nature and complexity of the U. S. tax system being amongst the most important economic issues in the U. S. today USA Today reports that a bus tour through Iowa sponsored by some version of the Tea Party and attended by various Republican Presidential candidates will focus on returning the U. S. to the Gold Standard.

Yes, they believe returning the U. S. to the Gold Standard will surely solve many economic woes.  And each candidate supporting that policy has said that “My support would be even more enthusiastic if I had the slightest idea of what returning to the Gold Standard meant”. 

Also featured on the bus tour will be a discussion of policy to bring back the telegraph as the main communications component of the economy, although some detractors said that the Pony Express was a more cost effective alternative.

The story says of Jeff Bell, a leader of a group advocating a return to the Gold Standard

Bell and his colleagues believe the issue has been neglected for too long.

Uh, no, the issues has not been neglected for long enough. It needs to be neglected for many years to come.   Don’t worry Mr. Bell, The Dismal Political Economist will let you know when it’s time to bring the Gold Standard back.  In the meantime, have a nice life.

The Mitt Romney Campaign took another blow on Monday.  Following the very nice article on Mr. Romney by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal, a paper that had pummeled him twice in editorials, The Dismal Political Economist warned Mr. Romney that trouble lay ahead and that is what is happening.  First Mr. Romney found himself way ahead in a poll for the New Hampshire primary (see the above link why this is bad), and now his work in managing the Winter Olympic Games has come under scrutiny.

Mr. Romney is credited with the financial salvation of the Winter Olympic games in his (one of his) home state of Utah.  Although the Dismal Political Economist is skeptical as to how successful management of one session of the Winter Olympics qualifies one to be President, if being Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska can qualify a person to be Vice President, then certainly Mr. Romney’s experience with the Olympics is valid.

However, as a report in the WSJ on Monday shows, the successful turnaround of the Utah Olympics was done with a lot of federal money, you know, the kind of federal money Conservatives want to deny to programs like health care, education and the like.

The Salt Lake Games got more federal cash than any previous U.S. Olympics. A review of lobbying records shows the Games hired 16 lobbyists from five firms for nearly $4 million. Mr. Romney was at the center of the effort, according to federal, local and Olympics officials.

Back when Senator John McCain (R,Az) was being Senator John McCain he

decried Olympics funds included in an emergency spending bill, including "support of these essential national-security activities on the ski slopes of Utah."