Warning to President-Elect Barack Obama from a Convicted Felon: Beware of the Bait and Switch

President-Elect Barack Obama’s plans to jump start the economy by quickly providing "badly needed stimulus" through massive government spending. As the criminal CFO of Crazy Eddie, the most gullible victims of my crimes were those investors who ran to invest huge sums of money without careful due diligence on where their money was going and how it was used. It seems that the future Obama administration may end up following the same path of my countless victims – quick and ultimately wasteful spending because of little or no due diligence.

Obama’s upcoming inauguration is expected to cost over $150 million or more than triple the $42 million amount spent on President George W. Bush’s 2005 inauguration. That is quite an expensive wedding, especially during a recession.

As our next President, Obama's honeymoon plans are even more extravagant than the wedding. During his first one hundred days in office, President Obama plans to introduce legislation to quickly spend almost $1 trillion to jump-start the economy. We are told that such a quick and massive infusion of funds is necessary to avoid a possible economic meltdown.

Local governments and special interest groups are lining up with wish lists for pet projects from the future Obama administration aka Santa Clause. It reminds me of Crazy Eddie’s famous “Christmas in August Blow-out Blitz."

In the case of Crazy Eddie, consumers were baited by our “lowest price guaranteed” advertising and flocked to our stores only to be switched by our highly skilled sales people to high profit merchandise that saved them no money and provided them little value. However, this time it will be the local governments and special interest groups looking to bait and switch the federal government.

Local governments and special interest groups will bait the federal government with sales pitches of combating poverty, reducing unemployment, green technologies, and fixing crumbling infrastructure and instead use such funds to subsidize wasteful spending projects and line the pockets of their constituents. After all, the Bush administration has already subsidized bad, irresponsible, and in some cases criminal behavior by lenders, investors, and borrowers with its $700 billion “Troubled Assets Relief Program,” also known as “TARP.”

The Obama campaign spent $740.6 million to capture the presidency, or almost $100 million more than all of the candidates combined just four years ago. They may consider it money well spent, since they won the election.

However, a drunken businessman may consider throwing down wads of cash to a hooker that tells him, “me love you long time” money well spent, too. That is, until he wakes up with a hangover, an empty wallet, and his clothing and underwear missing.

Like drunken businessmen throwing money at hookers, the future Obama administration seems ready and eager to throw money at anyone that can talk the talk and dance the dance. When the baiting and switching is all said and done, will the taxpayers be left with any clothes to wear?

To be continued....

Written by:

Sam E. Antar (former Crazy Eddie CFO and a convicted felon)

Other Advice to Barack Obama:

Advice to President-Elect Barack Obama about Combating White Collar Crime From a Convicted Felon

Disclosure:

I am a registered Democrat in New York. Convicted felons have the right to vote in New York (but they don't serve on juries, which I don't mind). I have voted for both Democrats and Republicans and have written about questionable behavior by Democrats and Republicans.