The Age is running a handy little multimedia page called “Economics Meltdown 101″. I particularly like this speculation, under the heading “What is the US rescue plan?”:
Even the amount nominated, almost US$150 billion more than the US has spent on the war in Iraq, was not chosen in any scientific way. A US treasury spokeswoman told Forbes magazine: “It’s not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number.”
I’ll remember that next time I’m in wage negotiations…
Hilarious.
Working in policy somehow that does not surprise me.
Yeah, I would have thought that a figure like, say, “723 billion” would have been more believable in that “well, they’ve obviously done some sums” kind of way…