There was a lot of noise last week about how the banks who’ve been drawing down the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program fund can’t account for how the money is being spent. It’s not like $700 billion can just disappear, right?
Well, a reader named Gannon Hubbard wrote in with a hunch as to where the money is being spent.
No, not on commercial loans or mortgage relief or even a new highway fund. Try … a rabbit hutch.
Yes, a third-party seller on Amazon.com was offering a “Marshall Peters Hinged Mat Woven Grass for Rabbits and Small Animal” for the low, low price of $766.5 billion:
As Gannon writes: “It looks like third-party selling on Amazon isn’t exactly foolproof.”
The good news is that a serious discount was invoked since this screen shot was taken, with the hutch now selling for just $13.59. The seller is called Sleepy Pets, and as of this writing, its most recent customer feedback was a five-star review that said: “Arrived well ahead of schedule.”
For $766 billion, I should certainly hope so.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Not all houses have lost value. Some are WAY up.
Think of all the people he could employ with all the spending he would do with that money?
I know, let’s just blow up all of civilization! Think of the potential economic growth!
I like the combination offer at the bottom: Buy all three for only $2.3 trillion! Also, the heading is “Frequently Bought Together.” Really?
An acquaintance works for a flooring business in Manhattan. Supposedly AIG is getting new floors at their offices, thanks to taxpayer money. Any reporters out there?
Guys, I think everyone is missing the point about this whole bailout. If the goal is to inject cash into the financial system, who cares what the entry point is? #12 stated that AIG is getting new floors: awesome! a contractor just got a job and payment that he wouldn’t have otherwise received, so he can pay his employees more (or hire more of them). The employees can then, in turn, go and spend those taxpayer dollars, turning around the recent trend in consumer spending.
Sure the investment itself may be a little silly initially, but remember that money keeps moving after it’s spent.
not sure if its still there, but someone put iceland up for sale on ebay!
Hey ALEX (#13)
If you are so confident in our bureaucrats to “not care where the ‘entry point’ is”; why don’t you just direct your own paychecks to someone else – say, ME? Or really, anyone besides yourself. Then those people will spend money that will abstractly benefit your community, and by extension, abstractly benefit you.
A “little silly” investment indeed….. the only new floor that AIG executives should be getting is the cold concrete one in a federal prison cell.
Please, please do a column on why the bailout is going to THEM instead of us. What would be the economic value of giving each adult 1000 dollars that had to be spent?