Who would have thought that the newest plan to the the United States out of the recession is through a website called Cash4gold.com, which gives you cash for your unused gold! I knew we could do it!

Or perhaps this isn’t the best plan of action for America, since they surely won’t get the true value of the gold they would be pawning. Thankfully, this isn’t a real news story, but rather a premise brought to us by the folks at the Onion. Now, if the president actually DOES start to think this is a good, let me be the first one to say that I disagree with this approach to settle our debt. It is not a good idea.

I have a feeling that over the past year Jon Hamm’s popularity has gone from Unknown to Vastly Underrated to Underrated to his present status of simply “rated.”  He’s still under the radar of most main stream entertainment consumers, but he’s now getting enough exposure that people are starting to recognize him.  In fact, he’s all over the place!  I first saw him on Mad Men as the main character, Don Draper.  Next, he hosted SNL and had some hilarious sketches, then he was on Bill Simmons’ podcast, then 30 Rock, and now he’s starring in videos on Funny or Die.   He’s doing a great job of dealing with newfound fame and notoriety by taking on roles on main stream, yet still funny productions.  Hopefully he doesn’t start making stupid movies and ruin his underrated status.

The reason why I like Jon Hamm is that he has been around in Hollywood for a long time, it just took his role on AMC’s Mad Men to propel him into notoriety.  In listening to his interviews, it sounds like he spent a lot of time waiting tables in Hollywood and taking on bit roles in movies before this happened.  I saw him in one of those bit roles last week, when We Were Soldiers was on TV.  He was one of the soldiers.

Now that he is successful, he has the opportunity to gain even more notoriety by starring in sketch comedy and other roles.  This video may be a little old, but it’s still relevant.  In the video, he plays super villain and arch nemesis to Superman, Lex Luther.  He is humbly asking for a bailout from the government… and is quite honest with his intentions.  He’s trying to get Superman!  You can tell that this Lex Luther seriously laments Superman.

“I’m sorry, but I work super hard on these things… and this f***ing guy comes in and he’s like “yeah, I’m the guy”

“I mean come on… I’m going to use the money to kill Superman.  I’m Lex Luther… that’s what I do.  I try to kill Superman”

“I hate Superman… I f***ing hate him”

South Park Bailout Mat

Gotta hand it to South Park for always being relevant, no matter what the topic.   I caught this video last night on a finance/economics blog of all places, and I have to say I laughed out loud.  This video premise kind of reminds me of a previous South Park episode where they make fun of Family Guy, saying that all ideas for the show come from Manatees with Idea Balls.

Similarly, in this episode, bailout decisions are made from where an object falls on the mat of bailout options (similar to Tom Smykowski‘s Jump to Conclusions Mat).  In order to choose what to do with an ailing bank or insurance company, the government (in this case white wig wearing bureaucrats out of the 1700′s) cuts off the head of a chicken, and another person plays a Kazoo.  The chicken runs around with its head cut off, and wherever it lands, we have our solution!  Instant Bailout!  I like the other options as well:

Let Fail

Try Again

$90 Trillion

$1 Billion

Indian Casinos

Tax The Rich

Telethon

Print Money

Given those options, I actually think that maybe South Park is right and we need a bailout!

Thanks to Calculated Risk for the video

I try to avoid political and financial talk at all costs in my personal life and on this site whenever possible, but this is just too good. John Stewart goes on an amazingly long and targeted rant about CNBC, and their poor financial predictions over the past few years. I have seen a few clips on YouTube showcasing the so called Wall Street “experts” saying that the market would be just fine as stocks were going down. Through the magic of video and the Internet, they look foolish now! (not that I should talk… I never really thought it would sink this low… but that’s why I don’t go on TV and talk about it).

The premise behind this video is that a CNBC correspondent, Rick Santelli, was supposed to go onto the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and explain his position. He must have canceled at the last minute, because Stewart was very angry, and went off on an 8+ minute rant about the topic. Lots of good lines and clips here, including predictions that many failed/plummeting banks (Bear Stearns, Bank of America, AIG, etc.).

I know that hindsight is 20/20, and it’s easy to judge people based on their opinions when they seemed like sound advice 1-2 years ago. However, these CNBC pundits say their predictions with so much conviction that I think that they deserve to be ridiculed posthumously. When you have a money show on TV, scream into the camera to get attention, and thousands of Americans listen to your advice, you deserve to be ridiculed on a much larger stage than Comedy Central. You should be forced to publicly apologize for being wrong.

Thanks to Tyler for sending in this clip.