Double Down

There is theory in blackjack, that most beginning players have considered employing. It's called chasing your losers. The theory is that if you double your bet every time you lose, when you finally win a hand, you get all your money back It works great... in theory. The theory, however, has one fatal flaw. When you run out of money, or hit the table limit, which can happen quickly, you lose... BIG. If you start out with a $10 bet, it take a mere in a row to be down $2,550. Two more, and you are down $10,230.

There is a school of thought that says that we need to continue to spend, invest, stimulate the economy. Whether it is Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman, or President Obama, they are saying that we need to continue our current spending levels, and that the worst thing that we could possibly do is to reduce spending. The problem, though, is that even governments can run out of money. It has happened recently in Greece and Ireland. It has the potential of happening soon in Spain, Portugal and Italy. In theory, it is possible to spend your way out of a recession, but just like chasing losers in blackjack, there is always the possibility that you can hit a losing streak, and when you lose, you lose big.