Fun on Friday: A Politician Wasting His Own Money

We all know politicians waste money, right? You’ve seen the stories about $640 toilet seats and bridges to nowhere. That kind of stuff enrages me. But it was kind of fun watching a politician waste his own money.

I’m talking about Michael Bloomberg, of course.

That dude blew through about $500 million in his short, ill-fated presidential run.

Bloomberg bought a lot of ads. I’m sure you saw them. Over and over and over again. Bloomberg was everywhere – from prime-time sitcoms to NASCAR races. Apparently, all those slick ads didn’t have much of an impact. Five hundred million in advertising just doesn’t go as far as it used to. For all that money, Bloomberg won one primary – American Samoa.

Bloomberg managed to garner 175 of the 351 votes cast in American Samoa. By the way, congrats on that Michael! That means he spent a little over $2.86 million per vote received in American Samoa. That’s definitely not a very good ROI.

Anyway, the sweeping victory in American Samoa wasn’t quite enough to keep the Bloomberg train on the rails. He dropped out and endorsed creepy Uncle Joe Biden.

In fact, pretty much everybody is out but ol’ Joe and ol’ Bernie. I wonder which old white guy the party of diversity will select to run against Trump?

On a funny side-note, journalist Mekita Rivas tweeted that, “Bloomberg spent $500 million on ads. The U.S. population is 327 million. He could have given each American $1 million and still have money left over. I feel like a $1 million check would be life-changing for most people. Yet he wasted it all on ads and STILL LOST.”

This demonstrates a truth – math is hard.

I went to journalism school. Here’s a bit of advice: always check a journalist’s math. We’re good at words. Not numbers.

What’s even funnier is this ended up on MSNBC

how did this end up on tv? pic.twitter.com/xUYIOChhKv

— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) March 6, 2020

By the way, the correct answer is Bloomberg could have given 500 people $1 million. Nice try though, Mekita.

Of course, that does mean he could have paid every American Samoa voter $1 million with money left over.  So, there’s that.

Of course, Rivas did get one thing right. Bloomberg still lost. And that’s the best part.

That and the fact that instead of wasting money he extorted from taxpayers, he wasted his own.

You know, that might be a decent political model. Make politicians pay for all their programs. I’d be down. How about you?

Fun on Friday is a weekly SchiffGold feature. We dig up some of the off-the-wall and off-beat stories relating to precious metals and share them with you – with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Click here to read other posts in this series.

Photo by Gage Skidmore