Thursday, December 8, 2011

David Walker Invents Reverse IQ Test



Former US Beancounter-in-Chief David Walker was out today in the media rolling out a new "Fiscal IQ" test for the public and policymakers.  Related OpEd from Walker at Politico here.

It looks like this IQ test works in reverse to most normal IQ tests, in that with Walker's test here, the higher score you get, the less intelligent you are.

Here is a link to the online test.  (Where do these people get the funds to do this stuff?)

Interesting excerpt from his Question 9 here: "Health care is the one thing that could literally bankrupt America."  This does not square with his own assertion to Mike from months ago that "there is no solvency issue" with regards to the US government finances.

TIP:  Go back to counting your beans David, and leave macro policy recommendations to those who know how a Free Floating Non-convertable currency system operates.

7 comments:

Tom Hickey said...

Seems like he thinks that Medicare is funded by premiums. But he is right that paying for healthcare can bankrupt everyone privately if they get anything serious and can't pony up personally. I guess if there is an epidemic, we'll just have to let everyone who can't afford treatment die. But someone tell him that Medicare is a government funded program, and the federal government funds itself directly. There could be problems with Medicaid, though, since it is partially state funded. Of course, if the political decision would be to increase the individual contribution to Medicare, which is likely, that's a problem too. But these are political impositions due to ignorance rather than operational constraints based on how government funds itself.

beowulf said...

"Literally bankrupt America", literally that would mean the US Govt would file for bankruptcy... and yet the bankruptcy court is part the US Govt. Now that's a conundrum.

Matt Franko said...

Beo,

Can you get that thought thru to Walker?

Maybe he will mentally self destruct like the Star Trek episode "I, Mudd" aka "Norman, Coordinate!"

"a recitation of the Liar's Paradox ("Everything I say is a lie. I am lying." Am I a liar or not?) finally incapacitates Norman and, with him, the remainder of the androids."

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/I,_Mudd_(episode)

Cheers!

Tom Hickey said...

If Walker admitted that the US cannot become insolvent due to operational constraint, and he continues to puts this stuff out, he is either logically challenged, or else he is being disingenuous.

SchittReport said...

walker must have scored a maximum himself thereby setting the standard for other american financial illiterates.

JIm said...

I got a 50. I attribute that to the fact that some of the questions were actually factual, if spun in the wrong direction. Otherwise I would have scored a perfect 0!

Horoscope 2024 said...

Peer e Kamil Novel
Tere Ishq ki Mujhko Aadat hai
Areej Shah Novels
Farhat Ishtiaq all Novels
Professor Shah Novel
Professor Khan Novel Season 1
Professor Khan Novel Season 2