Barney Frank, despite playing a significant roll in the financial crisis himself, has given me some cause for hope. Recently, he was asked about H.R. 1207, Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve. He praised the bill and predicted that “the House will pass it probably in October.” Given we have no idea what the Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve is doing with countless trillions of dollars, let’s hope he’s right.

Statistics about non-economic matters can be manipulated as well. One of the most disturbing is regarding war casualties from Iraq. The government has a great incentive to downplay the number of Americans who have died in Iraq as to make the cost of the war look smaller and not surprisingly, they’ve taken full advantage of it.

Here’s a very interesting article in the New York Times from 1999. Steven Holmes discusses how Fannie Mae was reducing its lending standards and increasing the issuance of subprime loans. This was a big cause in our current financial crisis, however, back then, everyone thought it was just dandy:

But where does a real estate bubble really begin? With low interest rates and additional cash to lend. Now, remind me again: who provides additional money and artificially low interest rates to “stimulate” the economy? That’s right, the Federal Reserve. If the financial crisis, caused by toxic mortgages, derivatives, and credit default swaps, was a giant game, the first play was made by the Federal Reserve. Simply put, if there’s no additional money to be loaned, and no artificially low interest rates to loan at, a real estate bubble doesn’t occur. Speculative manias have to start somewhere. Without a steroid shot of demand, it’s tough for too much mania to ensue.

As the Daily Reckoning puts it, “EVERY fiat currency since the Romans first began the practice in the first century has ended in devaluation and eventual collapse.” (4) There are two caveats to their argument, though: 1) if the fiat currency was ended for another reason, say the country was conquered and the currency replaced, then those examples are obviously ignored and 2) if the currency is still around today*, it also doesn’t count, because the currency will presumably fail in the future. The problem with this assessment is simple: What else can happen to a currency?

David Walker, the former comptroller general of the GAO, has said the United States is on pace for bankruptcy. Fiscally speaking, things look really bad. So what should we do? Well, real estate developer Aaron Bistons has an idea and a petition to back it up. Sell Alaska!

Needless to say, Brett Favre has a difficult time making up his mind, loves attention and does not give a crap what anyone else thinks about him (he also like gunslinging, having fun, mowing lawns and wearing blue jeans while playing pick up football). So how does this relate to economics? Well, it doesn’t much. But I’m going to try to make an inane connection in order to cash in on frequently searched Google terms.

It is an undisputed fact that the average real income… of American households rose by only 6 percent from 1969 to 1996… But it is an equally undisputed fact that the average real income per person in the United States rose by 51% over that very same period. How can both these statistics be true? Because the average number of people per household was declining during those years.

The public debt soared to $1.27 trillion in July, for fiscal year 2009. The current ceiling for the total public debt is set at $12.1 trillion, a figure the Treasury projects will be eclipsed by mid-October. This has Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner urging Congress to raise the debt ceiling, and raise it fast.

Typical government response; program X hasn’t worked, it’s obviously because we didn’t spend enough: