re: #351 WindUpBird

I’ll bet you $100 right here, right now, unemployment will not hit 14% because of health care reform.

That’s not a bet, because you can’t lose it. Do you bet that unemployment will not hit 14% for any month within the next six years? That would be a bet.

I wouldn’t take it, because 14% is emergency territory and the government will take desperate measures to head that off, and if they can’t stop it, they’ll fudge the numbers and publish lower unemployment figures.

The government wouldn’t fudge the numbers, you say? Nixon ordered “adjustments” to the computation of inflation. It got to where the nightly news was airing its own inflation numbers, and comparing and contrasting them with the official figures.

Nixon had more to answer for at the bar of history than just Watergate.