CRABBY

Yes, I am, but that's not why the title's in all caps. It's an acronym for a new grass-roots group I'm starting: Citizens Raging Against Big-government BureacracY. You in?

There are at least three other topics I wanted to address today, instead of this, but after watching "Meet the Press," I had to take this on while it's still fresh in my mind.

The topic was the economy and the huge deficit spending plan. (I refuse to fall in line with the new-speak Big Brothers in Washington and call it an "economic recovery plan," or even a "stimulus plan." So I'm going to call it what it is.) The panelists: Erin Burnett of Bubblevision, who proves on a regular basis that she does not understand the economy or the markets, and is indeed just another pretty face; Steve Forbes, a mega-rich publisher who inherited his wealth; and Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com, who's become America's favorite pop economist - sort of like "economist lite - a third less knowledgeable than your regular economist."

Since Zandi is an economist, I'll skewer him first. Not to be mean, but the guy's a buffoon.

He argued that the deficit could be even worse if we didn't spend the proposed $825 billion (which, with interest, balloons to $1.3 trillion), because the recession would mean tax revenues will be lower.

Guess what, Mark? Tax revenues are going to be lower anyway! See, we're in a recession, and people are losing their jobs, and corporations are losing money. And this porky pig of a spending bill won't reverse this recession.

Guess what else, Mark? Total personal and corporate federal income tax receipts in 2007 - before the recession started, and the latest data available - were $1.76 trillion. The reckless spending bill, with interest, amounts to 74% of that. Are you trying to tell me that without the massive spending proposed, the recession is going to worsen such that tax receipts will fall by 74%? Are you, Mark?

Well, let's say you are. Why, then, when asked how we can afford this pig when the deficit is already such a historically large percentage of GDP, did you say "Oh, but it's been much higher in our history, and we survived just fine"? If the coming recession is the Armageddon scenario you suggest in your tax revenue argument, how can you turn around and say this isn't as bad as the late '80s or mid-'70s? If this recession isn't any worse than those, why throw a trillion bucks at it?

Mark (I can't bring myself to call him Dr. Zandi; it's an insult to truly diligent economists who can research things like tax receipts and back up their assertions with data) also was asked why this spending bill would work.

"Well, first," he said, "it's big."

Huh? Never mind the fact that it's full of pork and paybacks to the special interests who helped buy the last election (and that's not a poke at Obama and the Dems, all US elections are bought and paid for by special interests). Never mind the fact that it's unlikely to stimulate the economy one iota, even with the re-sodding of the National Mall and millions of dollars for condoms stripped out of it. Doesn't matter - it's big. Well, well, Mark has finally answered one of the most time-honored questions on the minds of men - size matters.

But he cautioned that it had to be passed very quickly. See, he said, it's all about confidence - restoring confidence. If we dilly-dally around (he actually did use that term; it must be part of the New Economic Lexicon that I haven't gotten around to buying), people will lose confidence. So let's not spend too much time debating it (yes, he actually said that, too) - let's cram it through quickly.

Gee, that was the approach with the TARP, too. As Dr. Phil would ask, how's that workin' for ya, Mark? Did that shore up the economy? Did that restore confidence?

Nope, and nope. And Mark's a dope.

Erin Burnett didn't say much of substance, which is par for the course. She just looked cute saying it.

As for Forbes, he predictably showed his supply-side stripes and argued for deeper tax cuts, which would flow directly into the economy quickly. I agree with his how, but not his why: I don't think people would spend the extra income, I think they'd save it. But to me, one of the last believers that savings and investment are the true engines of growth, while consumption is a one-way ticket to Marx's utopia of communism, that is a good thing. So I'm fine with tax cuts, like the two-year payroll tax holiday Forbes proposed (which, at 2007's rates, would cost about exactly what the spending bill will). But of course, that'll never happen.

But Forbes lost me when he said that we need to do away with mark-to-market accounting. Apparently Steve's forgotten that the last deep credit-driven recession, in which numerous sudden S&L and bank failures took regulators and the markets by surprise, exposed the fallacy in the then-GAAP practice of recording everything at historical cost: as asset values decline, the erosion isn't stated on the books. So instead of watching a bank's earnings and capital slowly erode, it fails overnight, and shocks the heck out of everybody from the FDIC to stockholders to depositors. Instead of a steady, Bataan-death-march-like progression of the share price to zero - which allows savvy investors to get out before they lose everything - it results in a sudden drop from hunky-dory levels to nada. And then you have 1929 all over again.

So no, Steve-o, we don't need to hide just how truly bad off the US financial sector is behind the emperor's new clothes of historical cost accounting.

And yeah, I'm CRABBY. Are you?