Well, based on the AP headline “Obama team spells out need for bailout money,” I’d guess that if he were honest, he’d spell that “need” for bailout money in two words:
R-E-N-T
S-E-E-K-I-N-G
S-E-E-K-I-N-G
What, you may ask, is rent–seeking? Here’s a good essay on the subject from Mike Munger. The gist:
Robert Tollison, one of America’s premier students of public choice and government, defines rent-seeking this way: “Rent seeking is the expenditure of scarce resources to capture an artificially created transfer.” Competition for government goodies ? rent-seeking ? is a wild goose chase, no matter how well-intentioned the goose or the chasers.