Banking Political Influence: How the Fractional Reserve System Increases Political Power of the Financial Sector

by Greg Coleridge
[this is a chapter of an upcoming book to be published by the American Monetary Institute on impact of the Fractional Reserve banking system]

And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.
- Dick Durbin, US Senator, Illinois, 2009 1

In a rare public admission of the political influence by the nation’s financial sector, Senator Durbin acknowledged what has been a reality for generations. Banking corporations wield enormous political influence to shape public laws, rules and regulations to promote their private gains. Their singular and collective political influence has increased as the economy has shifted from producing real goods and services to creating, packaging, buying and/or selling ever more diverse, complex, risky and bizarre loans, insurances, currencies and other financial “products.” Money from banks that formerly were loaned to companies that produced needed consumer products are increasingly invested in options, futures, derivatives, hedge funds and other financial instruments (i.e. money invested in money) that yield greater profits.

This “financialization” of our economy increases profits and wealth of the finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) sector and makes our nation more economically dependent on that sector to drive economic growth. Increased profits, wealth and economic dependency have also increased their political power and influence, which guarantee further profits, wealth and dependency. A vicious cycle increasing both the financial and political power of financial corporations rages on with no end in sight.

The political influence and power of financial corporations was born, however, long ago when banks were issued the power to create money out of nothing through the fractional reserve system. Backed by the Federal Reserve, the nation’s private central bank, commercial banking corporations are legally permitted and protected to create new money literally out of thin air in the form of issuing loans or investments up to 90% of the amount of their existing reserves.

This means that for every $10,000 in assets held in reserve by a banking corporation, $100,000 in new money will over time literally be created by simple keystrokes on a bank computer. One hundred thousand dollars can be parlayed into one million dollars, $1 million into $10 million, $1 billion into $10 billion, and so on indefinitely. None of this includes the additional interest owed to banks due to these leveraged loans. Actions that would land you and I in jail (i.e. creating money) are legally permitted by banking corporations.

It’s another vicious cycle of issuing never-ending mind-boggling unearned wealth for banking corporations. It also creates a virtually bottomless pool of resources that can be invested to influence public policies -- both in creating new and defending exiting laws and rules beneficial to their interests.

Since “corporations are persons” and “money is speech” in our current constitutional system, banking corporations (like all corporations) can use their corporate revenue exercising their political “free speech” on behalf of and in opposition to issues, ballot measures and political candidates. The combination of these constitutional “rights” and virtually unlimited corporate resources thanks to fractional reserve banking means the political voices of banking corporations drown out the political voices of people who aren’t corporate CEOs or otherwise personally wealthy. This profoundly threatens what remains of our democracy

Eliminating the fractional reserve system is essential to creating a sustainable economy that meets the needs of our nation. It’s also essential to creating real democratic self-governance.

Early fears of banking influence

There was strong opposition to the formation and continuation of each of the first two privately operated central banks of the United States – the Bank of the United States (1791-1811) and Second Bank of the United States (1816-1836). Both were chartered or licensed for limited durations and purposes. Both charters weren’t renewed due to economic and political fears. Thomas Jefferson said, “I sincerely believe…that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.”2

President Andrew Jackson in his veto to a bill to renew the Second Bank’s charter stated the bank was guilty of fraud, corruption, and controlling the money supply to economically and politically benefit the bank. “[B]eyond question,” he asserted, “[this] powerful institution had been actively engaged in attempting to influence the elections of the public officers by means of its money...”3

Like other businesses at the state level early in our nation’s history, banks were charted by state legislatures. Charters were considered democratic tools by states to ensure banks and other corporations wouldn’t govern. After all, people were sovereign following the Revolution. Corporations, including banks, were subordinate to We the People.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled, for instance, that,
…[A] banking institution is a public institution, appointed for public purposes – never legitimately created for private purposes… its operations are subject to the control of that public, who may, from time to time, as the public good may require, enlarge, restrain, limit, modify its powers and duties, and, at pleasure, dispense with its benefits.4

Banks and other corporations that tried on their own to go into banking or otherwise usurp their charters were especially targeted by state legislators and courts that routinely revoked their charters for acting ultra virus (beyond their authority). Charter revocations were considered democratic actions by states to control the economic and political powers of corporations – especially banks.

“Locofocos,” members of the radical wing of the Democratic Party, were political firebrands in the first half of the 19th century. They were opposed to state banks, monopolies, paper money, tariffs, and financial policies that were undemocratic and conducive to special privilege.5

The Populists who feared the economic and political power of railroads and banks followed them. The national Populist Party in their Omaha Platform declared: “We demand a national currency, safe, sound, and flexible, issued by the general government only, a full legal tender for all debts, public and private, and that without the use of banking corporations.”6

President Lincoln issued Greenbacks, US debt-free money, to pay for the Civil War. This prevented economic, if not political, servitude of the nation by banks since the US government printed and circulated the money it needed without relying on banking corporations – and the interest and political strings that are attached.

The Federal Reserve System

The personification of economic and political power of banks during the late 19th century was JP Morgan. He controlled at the turn of the century a “Money Trust” of more than 100 banks, railroads, utilities and industrial corporations having total resources of $30 billion – the equivalent of $7.5 trillion dollars today. This represented 40% of all industrial, commercial and financial capital in the nation.7

Morgan’s money was the difference in electing William McKinley as President in 1896 in exchange for McKinley’s support of a money system backed by gold. Morgan’s wealth was also used to fund the Indianapolis Monetary Convention, a phony “grassroots reform” group calling for a new monetary system and private central bank. To heighten the issue, Morgan orchestrated the economic panic of 1907, which intensified the demand for a new central bank.

Bankers drafted a plan for the new central bank – controlled by none other than bankers. Morgan and other bankers drew upon their vast financial fortunes to lobby for the bill. The result was the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. “When the President Woodrow Wilson signs this bill,” Republican Congressman Charles Lindbergh said, “the invisible government by the monetary power will be legalized…”8

What the Act legalized was the monopoly by the new Federal Reserve System to create the nation’s paper money supply. It also granted the Fed the power to create money out of thin air as debt via purchases of government securities. The Fed also became the financial backstop for regional and local banks to create their own money out of nothing and to issue loans 10 times the amount in excess of their actual reserves. The Fed fueled, legitimized and to a certain extent protected banks that engaged in fractional reserve banking.

Lobbying and Campaign Contributions/Investments

The FIRE sector spends huge sums lobbying Congress and federal agencies. The sector spent $4.7 billion on federal lobbying between 1998 and 2011, employing several thousands of lobbyists. This was larger than any other sector except health, which spent just $3 million more during the 13-year period.9 Political campaign “contributions” (a more appropriate term would be “investments”) to federal candidates since 1990 from the FIRE sector total $2.8 billion.10

What did all this lobbying and contributions/investments yield over the last two decades? The money industry’s leveraged buyout of our political system resulted in passage of certain laws and blockage of others – all of which contributed to the 2008 Wall Street crash and global economic recession or slowed economy recovery. These included:
- Passage of the Financial Services Modernization Act in 1999 which repealed the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act prohibiting commercial banks from providing investment banking and insurance services
- Rejection of regulation of financial derivatives advocated by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and its head Brookley Born.
- Blockage of a law forcing banks to disclose money-losing or “toxic” assets to their investors.
- Passage of the Commodities Futures Modernization Act (CFMA) in 2000 which exempted financial derivatives, including credit default swaps, from any regulation.
- Enactment of a rule by the Securities and Exchange Commission permitting investment banks to set their own debt to capital ratio. It had been no more than 12:1. Afterwards, some banks went as high as 40:1.
- Failure to prevent predatory lending
- Federal preemption of state consumer protection laws
- Making it easier for banks to purchase, bundle and sell subprime loans without fear of liability
- Forcing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to divert from purchase prime housing loans to risky subprime loans from financial institutions.
- Massive mergers and concentration in the financial sector
- Passage of the Credit Rating Agencies Reform Act of 2006 reducing the ability of the SEC to oversee credit rating agencies that were giving high marks to financial entities engaged in risky investments.11

Banks and other financial institutions, which caused the 2008 financial and housing crisis, were first in line to receive billions in federal bailout assistance. US commercial banking corporations with political ties were more likely to receive federal bailout money under the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). Among the largest recipients were Bank of America ($45 billion), Citigroup ($45 billion), JP Morgan Chase ($25 billion), and Wells Fargo ($25 billion).12

Banks that spent more money on political lobbying were more likely to receive TARP bailout funds. Banks were also more likely to receive TARP money if they had an executive who served on the board of one of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks.13

Wall Street pulled out all stops to neuter the Dodd-Frank Restoring American Financial Stability Act, the so-called financial “reform” bill passed in 2010. What started out as a legitimate effort to “rein in $600 trillion in derivatives, create a giant new federal agency to protect financial consumers, open up the books of the Federal Reserve for the first time in history and perhaps even break up the so-called ‘Too Big to Fail’ giants on Wall Street” achieved little permanent change as the nation’s biggest banks unleashed over 2000 paid lobbyists and showered key Congressmen and Senators will campaign contributions/investments.14 Wall Street spent $251 million on lobbying connected to the bill during the first half of 2010.15

Nineteen of the twenty-two members of the Senate Banking Committee, which dealt with the proposal, receive donations from Wall St in 2009. Each of those up for reelection in 2010 received at least $180,000.16 Senate Banking Committee chair Chris Dodd has received over $12 million in his career in political contributions from the FIRE sector.17 Barney Frank, outgoing Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, raised about $1 out of every $3 over his career from the FIRE sector.18 The FIRE sector invested $42 million in the Obama campaign in 2008. John McCain raised, by comparison, $31 million.19

More than $352 million was spent by the FIRE sector during the first three-quarters of 2011, employing more than 2300 lobbyists.20 Lobbying by the five largest spenders in the banking sector increased 12% from a year earlier, from $42 million to $47 million. The major spenders included the American Bankers Association, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, and Citigroup. Bank of America was seventh on the list. The biggest increase in lobbying was by Wells Fargo, up 80% over 1 year. The bank alone has 28 paid lobbyists working in Washington, up from five in 2008. If the pace continues, 2011 will be the sixth year in a row commercial bank lobbying has set a record, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.21

The target of the lobbying was once again the Dodd-Frank so-called “financial reform” law. Though passed by Congress in 2010, more than 300 new implementation rules and details were still to be crafted by federal regulators, from a cap on swipe fees merchants pay on debt transactions to terms for implementing the Volker Rule, which bans proprietary trading. Wall Street lobbying sought to ignore, water down or outright undo many of these rules. More that 350 meetings with regulators were held by Wall Street lobbyists on just the Volker Rule compared to 20 by “progressive” groups that favor stricter trading rules.22

Political lobbying is particularly effective for the banking and other sectors during the rule making process following passage of any legislation for several reasons. The public, for one, is usually not actively engaged lobbying for their interests, as most citizens believe nothing more can be done once a bill is passed. For another, lobbyists engage with bureaucrats or congressional staffers instead of elected officials at this stage in closed door meetings – bureaucrats and staffers who are often enticed with employment as a lobbyist, consultant or strategist if they play ball. Bank funds are used to hire former government employees. In addition, many former lobbyists during one year or political administration end up back inside government the next year or administration. This “revolving door” phenomenon is quite common among the FIRE sector. Open Secrets reports that 2500 people have passed through the government-FIRE sector revolving door. This is the third highest of all sectors. It provides an even greater political bang for the bank lobbying buck.23

Not all revolving door members are low lever staffers and bureaucrats. Secretary of the Treasury appointees Robert Rubin and Hank Paulson during the Clinton and Bush administration have come from major banking corporations. Tim Geithner, the current Treasury Secretary, was head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the most powerful of all the private regional central banks.

The money industry’s political investments also bought freedom for those responsible for the financial and housing crisis. Despite evidence of fraud at the major banks, no major bank executive has gone to jail. "If you go back to the savings and loan debacle, we got more than a thousand felony convictions of the elite...” according to William Black who was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement.24

The FIRE sector has already contributed $16.8 million to Presidential candidates through December 2011. 25

Debt Dependency

The Federal Reserve System itself wields enormous political influence. The ability of the Federal Reserve and its member banks to create money out of nothing through fractional reserve banking allows it to be the major supplier of our government’s debt through purchases of trillions of dollars of federal IOU securities – notes, bills and bonds.

The US government has become dependent on the Fed to keep purchasing its debt. The Fed, as a private banking institution, is under no obligation, legal or otherwise, to continue to buy Treasury bills or any other security. This gives the Fed enormous political leverage in our nation in much the same way the International Monetary Fund (IMF) possesses political leverage over foreign countries that request loans to avoid default.

In the case of the IMF the conditions for further loans (called Structural Adjustment Programs, or SAPs) are changes in public policies – eliminating public employees, slashing public benefits, privatizing public assets, increases taxes and fees on all but the rich, debt reduction, deregulation, and reduction of trade barriers. If no austerity measures are enacted by nations, the IMF provides no loans

Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has repeatedly called on policymakers to enact the Fed’s own version of SAPs. Bernanke, and by extension the Fed, wants Congress to reduce the national debt, cut Medicare and Medicaid, tax goods and services (institute a Value Added Tax), and phase in spending cuts and other austerity measures over the next few years. 26 The threat of ending or slowing the purchase of government securities in general or certain securities to pay for programs the Fed disagrees with (i.e. anything that is not moving toward cutting benefits, services and programs to the working class and poor) is real.26

Just to make sure Congress knows the sentiments of the financial community on debt reduction, the FIRE sector was the third largest industry that lobbied the Congressional Supercommmittee.27

The money creation and leveraging ability of the Fed provides it with the wherewithal to pick economic winners and losers. The Fed’s original purpose of purchasing only government-backed securities is long gone. Prior to 2009, the Federal Reserve wasn’t allowed to purchase non-government securities or to hold them as assets. Sine then, they’ve purchased huge amounts of private, mortgage-backed securities.

The Fed offered insurance giant AIG $110 billion as a credit line and provided another $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out US and foreign banks.28 Choosing which banks and other entities receive bailout money and lines or credit not only impacts businesses, but also jobs, income, taxes, communities and political fortunes.

The Fed along the way also acquired new governing powers to regulate banks.29

The Fed’s political power, interconnected with their economic power, is potent. Is it any wonder that Simon Johnson, former IMF chief economist, said, “The finance industry has effectively captured our government.”

*****

The authority of the Federal Reserve and banking corporations to create money out of nothing and provide debt amounts far in excess of reserves is dangerous to our economy and what’s left of our representative democracy. The Money Trust has “captured our government.” They “frankly, own the place.”

Ending the fractional reserve system, as proposed in the NEED Act, HR 2990, and promoted by the American Monetary Institute ( www.monetary.org/ ) is essential. Breaking the nexus between economic and political power of the FIRE sector also requires political reform, specifically ending the twin legal fictions that “corporations are people” and “money is speech,” as promoted by the Move to Amend coalition ( http://movetoamend.org/ ). Together, these changes lay the foundation for a real democratic economy and government.

Notes
1 Ray Grim, Dick Durbin: Banks "Frankly Own The Place," Huffington Post, May 30, 2009.
2 Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Taylor, Monticello, 28 May 1816. Ford 11:533. http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/private-banks-quotation
3 Andrew Jackson, Fifth Annual Message, December 3, 1833
http://thehistorybox.com/ny_city/panics/panics_article3a.htm
4 Knoup v the Piqua Bank 1 Ohio S 603 (1853)
5 Coleridge, Greg, Citizens over Corporations: A Brief History of Democracy in Ohio and Challenges to Freedom in the Future, Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee, p 30.
6 Omaha Platform, July 4, 1892
http://clio.missouristate.edu/wrmiller/Populism/texts/documents/Omaha_Platform.htm
7 DeLong, J. Bradford, J.P. Morgan and His Money Trust, Harvard University, 1992.
8 Charles August Lindbergh, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_August_Lindbergh
9 http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=c
10 http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/totals.php?cycle=2012&ind=F
11 Essential Information and Consumer Education Foundation, Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America, March 2009, www.wallstreetwatch.org
12 Propublica, Bailout Recipients, Last updated, Dec. 12, 2011
http://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list
13 Steve Eder, Banks with political ties got bailouts, study shows Reuters, Dec. 21, 2009
14 Matt Taibbi, Wall Street’s War, Rolling Stone, May 26, 2010.
15 Jennifer Liberto, Wall Street's lobbying pricetag: $251 million, CNNMoney, Aug. 2, 2010, http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/02/news/economy/Wall_Street_lobbying/index.htm
16 Foster, John Bellamy and Holleman, Hannah, The Financial Power Elite, Monthly Review, May 2010.
17 http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=Career&cid=N00000581&type=I
18 http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011/11/which-democrat-will-next-head-financial-services.html
19 http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/sectors.php?sector=F
20 http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indus.php?id=F&year=a
21 Dunn, Andrew, Banks find extra money to hire lobbyists in D.C., The Charlotte Observer, Nov. 20, 2011.
22 Ibid.
23 http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/top.php?display=I
24 William K. Black on Fraud, Bill Moyers Journal, April 23, 2010,
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04232010/profile.html
25 http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/sectors.php?cycle=2012
26 Rick Newman, What Bernanke Wants Congress To Do, US News and World Report,
August 29, 2011
27 http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011/11/health-sector-groups-most-aggressively-lobby-the-supercommittee.html
28 The Fed Audit, US Senator Bernie Sanders website,
http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3
29 Joshua Ritchie, Reshaping the Fed, Feb. 22, 2010 http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/reshaping-the-fed/


Greg Coleridge is Director of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee (http://www.afsc.net) in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Contact: gcoleridge@afsc.org /
http://www.facebook.com/greg.coleridge / http://www.createrealdemocracy.blogspot.com

Can There Be “Good” Corporations?

The answer is Yes! Herein lies yet another positive change if corporate personhood and money as speech ended -- our society could support (including through tax incentives, etc) the creation and maintenance of employee owned businesses, credit unions, and cooperatives of all kinds. Democratizing our government must go hand-in-hand with democratizing our economy.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/9-strategies-to-end-corporate-rule/can-there-be-201cgood201d-corporations

What Could Change in Ohio if Corporations Weren’t People and Money Wasn’t Speech?

Here are specific ways our health, safety, welfare and democracy in our communities and state could be improved -- from clean air to clean elections, increasing our right to know to our right to decide, keeping toxic waste to chain stores out of our communities, and knowing what’s in our food to the chemicals injected in our land.

http://movetoamendohio.org/files/WhatCouldChangeInOhio.pdf

The Rising Unaffordability of a College Education

How much has the average cost of college at a four-year degree-granting institution risen since the 1976-1977 school year?

Our first chart below, drawing on data published in the Digest of Education Statistics: 2010 reveals the answer!

We see that the average cost of tuition and required fees at a four-year institution has risen from $1,218 in the 1976-1977 school year to $12,467 through the 2009-2010 school year.

But how affordable is that? To find out, we calculated the ratio of the average cost of tuition and fees with respect to the median household income for each of these years, which will give us a pretty good idea of just how affordable college has become for the years since 1976:

Here, we've shaded the years where the cost of a college education rose the fastest with respect to median household income. These are the times in which the cost of college really inflated beyond the ability of a typical American household to pay for it.

Next, let's look at the cost of college vs median household income, which will really let us see the inflation of the higher education bubble at work:

In this chart, we've estimated the additional inflation in college tuition and fees that has taken place in the 2010-2011 school year.

But what's really making college so unaffordable for the typical American household? The findings of a recently reported study points to the answer:

Perhaps worse for students than a crowding out effect is the Bennett Effect, named for William Bennett, who 25 years ago as Secretary of Education wrote for the New York Times, "Increases in financial aid in recent years have enabled colleges and universities blithely to raise their tuitions."

[...]

There have been mixed findings on the Bennett Effect in recent decades, with some studies finding a dollar-for-dollar relationship and others, none at all. Determining why college costs are rising is a difficult task, after all. Stephanie Riegg Cellini of George Washington University and Claudia Golden of Harvard take a new approach, focusing on for-profit schools. Some of these are eligible to participate in so-called Title IV aid programs (named for a portion of the aforementioned Act) and some not.

After adjusting for differences among schools, the authors find that Title IV-eligible schools charge tuition that is 75% higher than the others. That's roughly equal to the amount of the aid received by students at these schools.

Without such subsidies, college students would pay the full cost of the tuition and required fees for their education out of their own pockets, or through other financial aid, such as through student loans. With subsidies, the average college student is effectively paying the same amount of their own pockets as they would have without the subsidies, but their universities are also collecting the additional amount of the subsidies.

We see this effect especially during years of recession, where the federal government acted to sharply increase the subsidies for college educations. That's why we see the higher education bubble greatly inflate during these years.

It wasn't always that way. Back in 1982, in the depths of the second biggest recession since World War 2, the federal government didn't jack up its subsidies anywhere near like it did in later recessions. As a result, the cost of college remained closely coupled to the incomes of the typical American household.

But as you can see, the federal government has different ideas today. Perhaps because it has become the dominant student loan provider, as student loans have become nearly the full equivalent of taxes.

Data Sources

Digest of Education Statistics: 2010. Table 345. Average undergraduate tuition and fees and room and board rates charged for full-time students in degree-granting institutions, by type and control of institution: 1964-54 through 2009-10. 5 April 2011.

U.S. Census. Current Population Survey. Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplement. HINC-01. Selected Characteristics of Households by Total Money Income in 2010. 13 September 2011.

Office Survival Skills (Part II)

At some point during your office-based career, you will be required to run a meeting. And when that happens, it won't just be a large quantity of your time that will get wasted - it will also be the time of all those who attend your meeting.

The Portland Business Journal reports:

A new nationwide survey finds that "runaway" meetings are the biggest time-waster in the workplace. More than 27 percent of workers polled said meetings are the largest culprit for inefficiency and lack of productivity.

The survey was developed by Office Team, a staffing service specializing in skilled administrative professionals. With responses from 613 men and women, all 18 years or older, the findings are part of the "Office Team Career Challenge," a project to help administrative professionals advance their careers.

With today's lean staffing levels, there is increasing pressure for employees to manage their time effectively.

Yet, many employers actually sabotage time management with runaway meetings and interruptions. Industry Week calls meetings "the Great White Collar Crime," estimating they waste $37 billion a year.

So how can you, as someone who will be running a meeting, avoid becoming a white collar criminal?

Fortunately, Dolan Media's David Baugher has developed a list of things that meeting planners can do to avoid wasting too much of the collective time of the people who might attend the meeting, which we've excerpted below (emphasis ours). Although developed for lawyers, whose time might be otherwise used to make money at the rate of $250 per hour or more, the lessons might well be applied for other would-be meeting managers....

1. Undershoot the time.

It seems a no-brainer to schedule a meeting with enough time to ensure everything is covered. Yet Tom Polcyn, a partner at Thompson Coburn in St. Louis and chair of the firm's intellectual property group, says conventional wisdom is sometimes a bust. Instead, try scheduling a little less time than needed to encourage participants to cut to the chase. You can always schedule a follow-up meeting if something truly important is skipped. "Meetings have a way of filling up every last minute of the scheduled time, kind of like the way gas expands to fill a container," Polcyn says. "More often than not, I'm finding that if I would have normally scheduled an hour for this and instead we give 30 minutes a try, it's turning out to be enough time. It's like found time."

2. Don't do back-to-back meetings.

It's easy to stack and pack meetings one after another. But meetings are more productive if you schedule a few minutes between them to collect your thoughts, Polcyn says. "I've found this to be extremely helpful, because maybe I'll get out of an hourlong meeting and we'll all agree on certain action items — but if I go straight from that meeting into another one, I sometimes can forget what we all decided on or I end up at the end of the day with a mess of notes."

3. Ask the key question.

Too many meetings can be as bad as too few. Not every situation calls for a full-scale get-together. Legal management consultant Joan Newman, of St. Louis-based Joan Newman & Associates, says the first question to ask is obvious. "The first tip is deciding whether you need to have the meeting at all," says Newman, whose company is associated with national consultant Altman Weil. "Is there a way to accomplish what you want to accomplish without a meeting, whether it's a phone call, conference call, emails? Make sure you really need this meeting."

4. Be punctual.

Meetings are scheduled at a specific time for a reason. Don't dawdle when getting one under way just because a few stragglers haven't yet wandered in or participants are lingering in conversation over yesterday's softball game. "If you have a meeting, start on time and indicate how long the meeting is going to be," Newman says. "End on time. Nobody wants to sit there and have their time wasted because it doesn't start until five minutes late and doesn't end on time."

5. Don't settle in.

If a meeting can be brief, ensure that it is. Brent D. Green, a collections, commercial and bankruptcy attorney with Evans & Green in Springfield, says a simple lack of chairs at an impromptu gathering can have a positive effect on meeting length. "I had a meeting in my file room the other day on filing, and everybody stood up," he says. "It was a short meeting."

6. Don't let participants ramble.

Dan O'Toole, head of the litigation practice group at Armstrong Teasdale in St. Louis, says he gives meeting attendees a specific timeframe in which to complete their presentations. In a creative twist, he acquired a gong that sits next to the presenter. It's waiting to be struck "The Gong Show"-style if the speaker exceeds his or her allotted time. "I've never had to use it, but it is such a visual reminder to people of the need to stay on topic," O'Toole says. "It works wonders because nobody wants to be the first person to get the gong for having gone over."

7. Get out of your office.

For an important one-on-one meeting, playing host isn't always the best idea. "If it's a meeting with subordinates, you go to their office instead of having them come to you," Green says. "If you're in their office, when the meeting is over, you can just leave. It's hard to get a subordinate to leave if you have them come to your office."

8. Distribute materials ahead of time.

Handing out lengthy items at a meeting causes delays as participants read the handouts on the fly. Newman says a good organizer disseminates information before the day of the confab. "You don't want to be sitting there at the meeting educating them as to what this case is about," she says. "When you have them read things while at the meeting, they can't make an informed judgment."

9. Have an agenda.

Don't just wing it. Efficient meetings aren't organic. They are planned, with participants aware of when they will speak and what they will talk about. "I've been to so many meetings where people just say, ‘Hey, Bob why don't you tell us what's going on with that project?' and Bob has a big chunk of sandwich in his mouth and doesn't even know he was going to be called on," O'Toole says. "He just fumbles through it."

10. Keep the guest roster short.

An all-hands-on-deck approach to every meeting wastes time for both the unnecessary participants and the relevant personnel in the room. Think about who really ought to come to the meeting. "I've found that the more people you have at a meeting, the less tends to get done," Polcyn says. Try to make sure the people you invite to a meeting are the people who need to be there.

All we can say is "Amen!"

Previously on Political Calculations

• Office Survival Skills (Part I)

MONETARY HISTORY CALENDAR - February 27 – March 4

FEBRUARY 27

1844 – DEATH OF NICHOLAS BIDDLE, PRESIDENT OF SECOND NATIONAL BANK
Biddle threatened to cause a depression if President Andrew Jackson did not re-charter the Bank. The privately owned Second Bank was chartered in 1816. President Jackson did not sign the bill to renew the charter. "This worthy President thinks that ... he is to have his way with the Bank. He is mistaken...[opposition] can only be broken by the actual conviction of exiting distress in the community... Our only safety is in pursuing a steady course of firm restriction [of the money supply] - and I have no doubt that such a course will ultimately lead to restoration of the currency and the re-charter of the Bank." The result of the contraction of the money supply was a financial panic followed by a deep depression. (Edward Kaplan, The Bank of the United States and the American Economy)

1867 – BIRTH OF IRVING FISHER, MATHEMATICAL ECONOMIST
"If two parties instead of being a bank and an individual, were an individual and an individual, they could not inflate the circulating medium by loan transaction, for the simple reason that the lender could not lend what he didn't have as banks can do ... Only commercial banks and trust companies can lend money that they manufacture by lending it.” 100% Money (1935)

FEBRUARY 28

1856 – BIRTH OF WOODROW WILSON, 28TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
“A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved and who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom.” (1911)

MARCH 2

1876 -- US SILVER COMMISSION (TO STUDY THE CRIME OF 73) REPORT RELEASED ON WHAT CAUSED THE 1873 DEPRESSION
The Commission concluded that the depression was caused to a reduction of the money supply. They compared the 1873 Depression to the deflation of the Roman era. “The disaster of the Dark Ages was caused by decreasing money and falling prices… Without money, civilization could not have had a beginning, and with a diminishing supply, it must languish and unless relieved, finally perish. Falling prices and misery and destitution are inseparable companions. It is universally conceded that falling prices result from the contraction of the money volume.” The Report suggested that the Dark Ages ended when paper money was issued, “It is suggestive coincidence that the fist glimmer of light only came with the invention of bills of exchange, and paper substitutes…”

MARCH 3

1863 - LEGAL TENDER ACT PASSED
Congress authorizes the Government to print no more than $400,000 million Greenbacks to pay for the Civil War. This was interest-free and debt-free money. The Lincoln Administration did not want to borrow money from corporate banks to pay for the war.

1865 – NATIONAL CURRENCY ACT AMENDED BY CONGRESS
The act amended the National Currency Act of 1864. State banks were no longer permitted to issue bank notes (currency).

1884 – JULLIARD V. GREENMAN ( 110 U.S. 421 ) SUPREME COURT DECISION
US Supreme Court ruling upholding the legality of US Government issued money (Greenbacks) created following the Legal Tender Acts of 1862 and 1863. The Court ruled that the government possessed the authority under the Constitution to issue a national currency and that that currency could be used to pay debts.

2003 - WARREN BUFFET, SECOND RICHEST PERSON ON EARTH, IN HIS ANNUAL LETTER TO BERKSHIRE HATHWAY SHAREHOLDERS
“Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction."

MARCH 4

1789 – US GOVERNMENT UNDER NEW CONSTITUTION BEGINS OPERATION
The Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation as the overarching legal document of the nation. The new Constitution provides the federal legislature the sole power “[t]o coin money [and] regulate the value thereof.” (Article 1, Sec 8). The Government subsequently abdicated its responsibility when it gave the Federal Reserve and private banks the power to create money literally out of thin air…as debt.

1837 – FAREWELL ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT ANDREW JACKSON
Jackson was most responsible for not renewing the charter of the misnamed Second Bank of the United States, a private institution. In his farewell address when leaving office (Presidents used to sworn in during the beginning of March for decades, now it’s mid January), he stated, “The immense capital and peculiar privileges bestowed upon it [(Second National Bank of the United States] enabled it to exercise despotic sway over the other banks in every part of the country. From its superior strength it could seriously injure, if not destroy, the business of any one of them, which might incur its resentment; and it openly claimed for itself the power of regulating the currency throughout the United States. In other words, it asserted (and it undoubtedly possessed) the power to make money plenty or scarce at its pleasure, at any time and in any quarter of the Union, by controlling the issues of other banks and permitting an expansion or compelling a federal contraction of the circulating medium, according to its own will.”

1861 – INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 16TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES – A REPUBLICAN
"The Government should create issues, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of the consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of the government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity."
This is something to keep in mind during this period when Republican parties at the local level hold their “Lincoln Day” annual fundraising dinners.

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Why this calendar? Many people have questions about the root causes of our economic problems. Some questions involve money, banks and debt. How is money created? Why do banks control its quantity? How has the money system, been used to liberate (not often) and oppress (most often) us? And how can the money system be “democratized” to rebuild our economy and society, create jobs and reduce debt?
Our goal is to inform, intrigue and inspire through bite size weekly postings listing important events and quotes from prominent individuals (both past and present) on money, banking and how the money system can help people and the planet. We hope the sharing of bits of buried history will illuminate monetary and banking issues and empower you with others to create real economic and political justice.
This calendar is a project of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee. Adele Looney, Phyllis Titus, Donna Schall, Leah Davis, Alice Francini and Greg Coleridge helped in its development.
Please forward this to others and encourage them to subscribe. To subscribe/unsubscribe or to comment on any entry, contact monetarycalendar@yahoo.com
For more information, visit http://www.afsc.net/economiccrisis.html

Questions From Our Inbox: Why Are Gasoline Prices Rising So Much?

It seems that unlike say a "trained journalist" like the Incredibly Incurious Jonathan Chait, our casual readers are more than capable of asking us questions about our work!

Proof of that today comes straight from our e-mail inbox, which we can attest has still not registered any electronic contact initiated by "trained journalist" Chait, where someone with actual curiosity observed and asked:

Gas prices are about as high as they were in mid 2008 when oil was about 140 per barrel but oil today is about 110. Why the disconnect?

That's a good question - one for which we had no idea what might be the answer before we decided to take it on! Here's our augmented response, where we've expanded upon our original reply to our inquiring reader!...

It's not as disconnected as you might think, given which crude oil and gasoline prices are primarily involved.

Here, the increasing price of Brent crude oil that we've previously discussed...:

Source: livecharts.co.uk - 26 February 2012

... is being pushed upward by geopolitical concerns. That upward price pressure has combined with already falling demand in the U.S....:

... to force the closure of money-losing refineries in the U.S. that refine Brent crude oil, mainly on the East coast.

Matthew Philips of Bloomberg BusinessWeek provides more details from a 23 February 2012 article:

The average price of gas is up more than 10 percent since the start of the year, a point repeatedly made during Wednesday's Republican Presidential debate. Predictably, the four GOP candidates blamed President Barack Obama for the steep increase.

Actually, the President doesn't have that kind of pricing power. The more likely reason behind the price increase, though certainly less compelling as a political argument, is the recent spate of refinery closures in the U.S. Over the past year, refineries have faced a classic margin squeeze. Prices for Brent crude have gone up, but demand for gasoline in the U.S. is at a 15-year low. That means refineries haven't been able to pass on the higher prices to their customers.

As a result, companies have chosen to shut down a handful of large refineries rather than continue to lose money on them. Since December, the U.S. has lost about 4 percent of its refining capacity, says Fadel Gheit, a senior oil and gas analyst for Oppenheimer. That month, two large refineries outside Philadelphia shut down: Sunoco's plant in Marcus Hook, Pa., and a ConocoPhillips plant in nearby Trainer, Pa. Together they accounted for about 20 percent of all gasoline produced in the Northeast.

This week, Hovensa finished shutting down its refinery in St. Croix. The plant processed 350,000 barrels of crude a day, and yet lost about $1.3 billion over the past three years, or roughly $1 million a day. The St. Croix plant got hit with a double whammy of pricing pressure. Not only did it face higher prices for Brent crude, but it also lacked access to cheap natural gas, a crucial raw material for refineries. Without the advantage of low natural gas prices, which are down 50 percent since June 2011, it's likely that more refineries would have had to shut down.

The U.S. refining industry is being split in two. On one hand are the older refineries, mostly on the East Coast, which are set up to handle only the higher quality Brent "sweet" crude–a benchmark of oil that comes from a blend of 15 oil fields in the North Sea. Brent is easier to refine, since it has a low sulfur content, though it's gotten considerably more expensive recently. (Certainly another reason for higher gas prices.)

[Be sure to read the whole article, because it also explains why gasoline prices are so much lower elsewhere in the U.S.]

The combination of rising gasoline prices with reduced quantities being supplied indicate that the relative decrease in supply stemming from the recent refinery closures is currently driving the price of gasoline in the U.S. by more than what would be driven by rising crude oil prices alone:

Price and Available Quantity Data
Input Data	Values
How has the price of the item changed over a given period of time?	The price has increased. The price has decreased.
How has the available quantity of the item changed over that same time period?	The quantity has increased. The quantity has decreased.

What's Behind the Change in Price?

And that, in a nutshell, is why gasoline prices have risen as high as they did back in 2008, even though crude oil prices haven't risen as high as they did then.

We will note however that actual journalist Matthew Philips is incorrect when he suggests that "the President doesn't have that kind of pricing power". The supply disruptions from the closure of money-losing oil refineries on the East coast and their result effect upon gasoline prices could have been minimized simply by subsidizing their operations - much as the President has been willing to subsidize "green energy" companies that were also certain to fail, like Solyndra.

By our estimate, the $500 million of taxpayer money that the President put on the line and lost on that one company would have been sufficient to keep just one of these recently closed refineries going for another 500 days - thus avoiding the supply disruption and massive run-up in U.S. gasoline prices. (And that doesn't include all the other "green energy" business failures where taxpayer money has been permanently lost that could have gone to create or save real refinery jobs!)

At least then, taxpayers might have something more to show for the money the President was so determined to waste, no matter what!

Can Billy Crystal Sell Movie Tickets?

If you think about it, the Academy Awards ceremony is really just a three to four (or more!) long televised advertisement for the "Best Picture" winner.

Our question about the Oscars this year: Can host Billy Crystal keep enough of the television audience engaged in the broadcast for long enough to be able to sell more tickets than would otherwise be sold to whatever movie wins that title?

Sure, he'll be dressed in a tux and will look like the guy who sells you movie tickets behind the bullet-proof glass at your local cineplex, but why should Hollywood have to count so much on Billy Crystal to sell their movie tickets?

That question is super-relevant this year because of the unmitigated disaster that was the 83rd Annual Academy Awards ceremony last year! That was when so much of the U.S. audience tuned out during the poorly written and directed live broadcast that the movie's box office plummetted by 15%, as the Best Picture winner took in *LESS* money at movie theaters in the week after the Oscars ceremony than it did in the week before.

It's true! We went back and compared the one-week before and one-week after box office totals for all the Best Picture winners announced since 2000 to see just how each did, using the daily box office data for each as reported by Box Office Mojo, and then calculated the percentage increase or decrease in the week after the Oscars as compared to the week before.

Our data is presented in the table below:

Box Office Performance of "Best Picture" Academy Award Winners, One Week Before and After Winning
Academy Award	Ceremony Date	Best Picture Winner	Box Office in Week Before Oscars	Box Office in Week After Oscars	Percentage Change
72	26 March 2000	American Beauty	$5,460,072	$8,190,112	50%
73	25 March 2001	Gladiator	$45,033	$474,174	953%
74	24 March 2002	A Beautiful Mind	$5,499,295	$6,140,030	12%
75	23 March 2003	Chicago	$9,169,194	$10,637,940	16%
76	29 February 2004	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	$2,996,678	$4,094,558	37%
77	27 February 2005	Million Dollar Baby	$10,538,151	$11,748,270	11%
78	05 March 2006	Crash	$70,399	$342,709	387%
79	25 February 2007	The Departed	$367,064	$336,608	-8%
80	24 February 2008	No Country for Old Men	$3,365,401	$5,389,446	60%
81	22 February 2009	Slumdog Millionaire	$11,673,672	$16,669,726	43%
82	07 March 2010	The Hurt Locker	Not in theaters.
83	27 February 2011	The King's Speech	$10,989,524	$9,315,074	-15%

Since 2000, the box office take of the Academy Awards' Best Picture Winner increases by an average of 22% in the week following the Oscars ceremony as compared to the week before, with the best performance being turned in by Gladiator, which was very near the end of its run in theaters when it won.

The worst however was last year's announced winner The King's Speech, which dropped like a rock after it won. Its only competition for losing money was the Best Picture winner announced in 2007, The Departed, the ceremony for which was also negatively reviewed.

By contrast, the years for which we have data in which Billy Crystal hosted the Oscars (2000 and 2004) saw the box office take for the Best Picture winners jump upward by an above average of 43% - more than double the average post-Oscar bump. It's no accident that Billy Crystal is back....

There just aren't many Oscar hosts who are as gifted at selling movie tickets!

Previously on Political Calculations

• Identity of Political Calculations' "Ironman" Revealed


• Anti-U.S. Fervor in Hollywood


• The Anti-War on Hollywood's Box Office


• Reflections on the Oscars and the Most Manipulative Man in Hollywood


• How Men Are Like Bad Movies, and Why Bad Movies Keep Getting Made


• Do the Academy Awards Boost Box Office?


• Does Best Picture Equal Big Box Office?

How Sanctions on Iran Might Affect World Oil Prices

John Iacovelli recently ran some "back of the envelope" calculations on the potential impact of Western country sanctions on Iran upon world oil prices. He estimated:

The U.S. Energy Information Administration in its latest tables stated that the Persian Gulf states produced 23,714 thousand barrels per day of crude as of October 2011, which we'll round to 23.7 million.

At the current time, Saudi Arabia is already producing more than usual to make up for the drop in Libya oil production. Let us arbitrarily state, then, that the other Gulf states will make up no more than 20% of the shortfall in Iranian production; thus, the calculation would be as follows:

• 23.7 million, total Gulf production


• minus .8 million (loss of 1 million Iran, plus .2 additional additional from Saudi Arabia and/or others)


• equals 22.9 million as the new production level.


• .8 divided by 23.7 equals a percentage drop of 3 and 1/3 percent. (-0.033)

Taking our PED formula and the Wikipedia coefficient for world oil, then:

• -.4 times -.033 = +1.33 percent change in the price of Persian crude, based upon the drop in supply.

The January 2012 price of Dubai crude (the benchmark for the region) is $110. Adding 1 1/3% puts the new price at $113.63.

I'm neither a mathematician nor an expert in oil pricing, and so would love to hear from anyone who has experience in the subject regarding this exercise. I know enough to know that my calculations could be hysterically off the mark.

But are they hysterically off the mark? To find out, we'll adapt a tool we originally developed in November 2011 to estimate what the impact would be upon world oil prices if the United States increased its production of oil by 25%.

Here though, we'll use the CIA's current estimate for world oil production in 2010 of 89,346,535 barrels per day, the most recent year for which the data is available (even going by the Energy Information Administration's world data, which as of 12 January 2012, only covers 10 months of 2010.)

The CIA's data indicate that Iran, the fourth largest producer of oil in 2010, produced 4,252,000 barrels per day that year. If sanctions imposed by Western nations only affect 25% of Iran's production, then the effect would be to reduce the daily supply of oil to the world by 1,063,000 barrels per day.

Because most of the oil that would be affected by sanctions upon Iran would be shipped to Europe, we'll use the average January 2012 spot price of $110.69 per barrel for Brent crude oil in Europe as our price reference.

The results may be found by clicking the "Calculate" button below!

Oil Production and Economic Data
Input Data	Values
Daily Oil Production Data
Change in Amount of Oil Production [Positive if increase, negative if decrease]
Oil Price (per Barrel)
Demand Elasticity
Supply Elasticity

Estimated Price Change
Calculated Results	Values
Projected Change in the Price of a Barrel of Oil

As always, you're more than welcome to update our tool with more recent data or to consider other assumptions or scenarios!

Using our tool, we would anticipate that the price of Brent crude oil in Europe would rise by $4.39 per barrel, from $110.69 in January 2012 to $115.08 as a result of Iranian oil being embargoed by Western nations, if not offset by increases in the oil production of other nations. Such as the United States, which is experiencing somewhat of a boom in new oil production.

If Iran's oil production were completely shut off from the world, and no other oil producers adjusted their supplies to compensate, the effect upon European oil prices would be to increase the cost of each barrel of Brent crude oil by by $17.39.

So all in all, we find that John Iacovelli's math appears to be largely on target, as the results are consistent with what we find using slightly different assumptions about the elasticity of oil supply and demand.

The Billionaire Decay Function

Previously, we built a tool to calculate the probability that an individual could keep earning at least $1 million dollars annually after having done it once.

Today, we're headed for the stratosphere of annual income earners to see just how long they can expect to stay on top after they become one of the Top 400 taxpayers in the United States!

Our tool below is based upon data covering the years from 1992 through 2008 about the Top 400 taxpayers published by the IRS. Technically, these individuals aren't necessarily "billionaires", but all have earned anywhere from a low of at least $22,559,000 in 1993 ($20,397,000 in terms of constant 1990 U.S. dollars) to at least $138,815,000 in 2007 ($87,525,000 in constant 1990 U.S. dollars) to be able to be counted among the IRS' "Top 400" in the years from 1992 through 2008!

Time Data
Input Data	Values
Number of Years After Becoming a Top 400 Taxpayer

Probabilility of Being a Top 400 Taxpayer
Calculated Results	Values
Probability of Being a Top 400 Taxpayer After Entered Number of Years

Running the numbers, compared to just making one million dollars in a year, it's a lot less likely that a U.S. taxpayer will make the Top 400 of all U.S. taxpayers more than once! In fact, after 17 years, the IRS data suggests that only one individual made the list in each of the 17 years for which it has been reporting its data.

The IRS notes the high amount of changeover in the Top 400 U.S. taxpayer from year to year:

Over the 17 tax years a total of 6,800 returns were identified for the table. There were 3,672 different taxpayers representing the top 400 returns of each year. Of these taxpayers, a little more than 27 percent appear more than once and slightly more than 15 percent appear more than twice (see columns 2 and 3). In any given year, on average, about 39 percent of the returns were filed by taxpayers that are not in any of the other 16 years (see columns 4 and 5). In each year, 4 (or 1.0 percent) of the returns are for taxpayers who can be found in all 17 years. Thus, the data shown in the table mostly represent a changing group of taxpayers over time, rather than a fixed group of taxpayers.

You know what they say - it's nice to make it to the top, but good luck staying there!

Data Source

Internal Revenue Service. The 400 Individual Income Tax Returns Reporting the Highest Adjusted Gross Incomes Each Year, 1992-2008. 1 August 2011.

Should You Buy a Powerball Ticket?

Wouldn't it be nice to win the lottery? And since the multi-state Powerball lottery game has just changed to offer higher jackpots, including one that recently went over $330 million, could it be a good idea to buy a Powerball ticket today?

Basic Lottery Game Data
Input Data	Values
How many possible numbers are there to choose from in the main set?
How many numbers from this set does the player get to pick?
"Powerball" or "MegaBall" Data
How many possible numbers are there to choose from for the Power or Mega Ball?
How many numbers from this set does the player get to pick?
Ticket Cost Data
Cost of a Lottery Ticket
Income Tax Rates
Federal Income Tax Rate (%)
State Income Tax Rate (%)
Local Income Tax Rate (%)

The Odds of Winning the Lottery and the Magic Jackpot
Calculated Results	Values
The Odds of Winning the Jackpot (1 in ...)
The Magic Jackpot (The Number That Makes Playing the Lottery Worth the Cost of a Ticket)

The answer is "it depends". Specifically, it depends upon the following factors:

• What are the odds of winning the jackpot?


• How much does a ticket cost?


• If you do win, how much of your prize will be taxed away from you?

Together, these three things, combined with the kind of math that an economist might do to calculate the environmental costs of a spill from an oil pipeline, will tell us how big the lottery jackpot needs to be to be worth the cost of the ticket to play!

And that's the math our tool today is here to do for you! Just enter the indicated data for the lottery game of your choice, and we'll calculate just how be the jackpot has to get to be worth the amount of money you might be willing to plunk down on a ticket.

Our default data is that for the new Powerball game, which was revised back on 15 January 2012 to double the price of a single ticket from $1 to $2, and which was also tweaked to increase the odds of winning.

Doing the math, we find that in order to fully justify the cost of a $2 lottery ticket, and to also compensate for the negative effect of having the jackpot get taxed at just the current top federal income tax rate of 35%, the Powerball lottery would have to exceed $539,149,262.

Will the Powerball jackpot ever exceed the more than half billion dollars it at least needs to be to be worth the price of its $2 ticket to play? It's possible, but the odds are such that the average jackpot paid out will be around the $175 million level, which means there's probably something else a lot better you can do with your $2 than play the new Powerball game!