I’ve been hearing the term “unintended consequences” alot lately.  Here are some of my most important unintended consequences: 

1) The rush to implement the TARP program late last year by the Bush administration has yielded a huge benefit to the big government Obama administration.  They are using the TARP money to hold the bankers hostage http://tinyurl.com/cmol3v

2) Mark to market “adjustments” will kill the Treasury’s PPIP plan.  Congress and their lobbyist friends successfully changed the rules of the game.  They went for the quick fix.  Now it looks like the only investors in the PPIP plan will be some pension plans that really don’t have much of a choice and are usually last to the party : http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE53323S20090404?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

3) The June 2007 implementation of the SEC’s Regulation NMS was supposed to reduce volatility and increase transparency in the equity market.  Fact is though, transparency has been reduced and volatility has sky rocketed due to all of the new electronic toxic trading.  Whoever has the biggest, fastest computer now is the “ax” in a stock.   For more:  http://blog.themistrading.com/?p=29

“Unintended Consequences” – Let’s be careful what we wish for, sometimes the results just magnify the original problems.