Here’s a pop quiz that will help you realize all you learned in 2008.
You would not have guessed the answers at the beginning of the year, but they are painfully obvious now.
1. Which of these well-known institutions will disappear in 2008? a) Bear Stearns; b) Lehman Brothers; c) Merrill Lynch; d) Arby’s.
2. When an investment bank fails and threatens to melt down the market, it’s easiest to blame: a) overpaid executives; b) subprime debt securities; c) pesky short-sellers.
3. What is TARP? a) a plastic sheet to pull over your 1982 TransAm; b) what you sleep under after your home is foreclosed; c) A $700 billion full-employment act for failing bankers.
4. Which Mac is in less muck? a) IndyMac; b) Freddie Mac; c) GMAC; d) Kraft Mac & Cheese.
5. Which U.S. industry is most likely to resemble something from a socialist country? a) banking; b) housing; c) auto manufacturing; d) everything except health care.
6. Creeping socialism threatens the free market, thanks mostly to: a) unions; b) environmentalists; c) pot-smoking hippies; d) some former executives of Goldman Sachs.
7. Which world leader has overseen the nationalization of more businesses? a) Hugo Chavez; b) Vladimir Putin; c) George W. Bush.
8. Who is Angelo Mozilo? a) a guy who scored more than $400 million at Countrywide Mortgage; b) one of the “Ten Most Wanted: Culprits” of the collapse, according to CNN; c) a guy with many “friends” in Washington, D.C.; d) the giant lizard that rock band Blue Oyster Cult warned us about: “Oh, no; they say he’s got to go; go, go Mozila.”
9. After bagging more than $350 billion in government guarantees and handouts, Citigroup should change its name: a) back to Citibank; b) to something more precise, like Citigrab.
10. Who is T. Boone Pickens? a) the banjo player on “Hee Haw”; b) twin of actor Slim Pickens; c) hedge-fund manager, who tilted at windmills in TV commercials, swearing that oil would hit $200 a barrel and losing more than $1 billion.
11. Who developed the most sensible energy policy in 2008? a) Pickens; b) Barack Obama; c) John McCain; d) Dick Cheney, based on old notes from a meeting with late Enron chief Ken Lay; e) Paris Hilton.
12. Who is the governor of Alaska? a) Quinn the Eskimo; b) Nanook the Polar Bear; c) Sarah the Barracuda.
13. Whom do you call when your presidential campaign is in trouble? a) Karl Rove; b) Dick Morris; c) Joe the Plumber.
14. Which scion of a well-known political family would have the least-controversial background to serve on the board of a financial institution? a) Neil Bush; b) Andy McCain; d) Malia Ann Obama.
15. What caused the recession that began in December 2007? a) a hysterical media; b) a nation of economic whiners; c) pesky short-sellers; d) reckless lenders.
16. The bear market is a) cuddly; b) nude; c) a barrel of monkeys.
17. When Prince first sang, “Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1999,” he could not have foreseen: a) the housing bubble that followed the Internet bubble; b) AIG after securing a government bailout.
18. Name history’s biggest alleged Ponzi scheme. a) WorldCom; b) Enron; c) some 70-year-old guy named Bernie.
19. Failing newspaper chains should: a) quit printing such rags; b) surrender everything to Google; c) capitalize on the increasing demand for printing presses at the U.S. Treasury.
20. When Big Auto executives are stymied and humiliated before Congress, they should: a) resign; b) file bankruptcy; c) go back to Washington a few weeks later and ask for even more money; d) just ask President Bush.
21. Who is least likely to face insider-trading charges in 2008? a) Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban; b) National Lampoon; c) all those pesky short-sellers.
22. Eliot Spitzer will be most renowned as: a) a shoot-from-the-hip sheriff of Wall Street; b) governor of New York; c) a future president of the United States; d) client No. 9.
23. What is 0.25? a) the best offer Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich might get for President-elect Barack Obama’s Senate seat now; b) the Federal Reserve’s efficient alternative to simply dropping dollars from helicopters.
24. Name the biggest threat President Bush will face in 2008. a) impeachment; b) a terrorist attack; c) an Iraqi guy throwing shoes.
25. What did politicians mean when they said, “Let’s help out Main Street, not just Wall Street”? a) all our roads have potholes; b) if you can’t afford Saks, try Wal-Mart; c) there’s more than one name for our free-spending road to ruin d) vote for me.
Answers: Sorry, the people in charge ran out of answers long before they realized we’d have questions.
Al Lewis: 201-938-5266 or al.lewis@downjones.com
