It’s the same way for politicians. Give them some cash and they’ll have it spent in no time flat, even if they can’t find anything worth buying.

Take, for example, the infamous Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP in informal nomenclature. Passing the $700 billion program was a matter of financial and economic life and death according to Washington.

They gave us the same panicky “must-have” arguments as a six-year-old in the toy aisle.

But once they got what they wanted, their “toy” sits unused in the corner. As I write, TARP has over $140 billion in uncommitted funds and $300 billion that has yet to be spent.

Yep, they really need that money, didn’t they?

But the story gets even better. Fully expecting a miraculous recovery by the end of this year, our policymakers set TARP to expire on the final day of the 2009. They figured Obama would certainly prop all 300 million of us on his shoulders and carry us to safety by year’s end.

Now that the economic situation is not nearly as rosy as Obama promised a year ago, Washington is crying once again how badly it needs the money. It’s just how little Johnnie cries and moans when little Janie plays with the toy truck he hasn’t touched in months.

Geithner and his team have hundreds of billions of borrowed money up their sleeves with few viable ways of spending it. But now that we are asking for the money back, they say they need it… at least through next October (definitely not through November elections).

Do we ever grow up? It’s like a bunch of kids playing with very expensive toys in Washington.

*** Have you noticed a lot of Washington’s “economic recovery” programs are up for renewal these days?

TARP, the housing stimulus and all sorts of unemployment benefits have been or will be extended. I’m surprised we haven’t seen the resurgence in Cash for Clunkers.

There’s even a bill that would tax Wall Street to the tune of $150 billion annually to help create new jobs. It’s called, get this, “Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Act of 2009.”

All these extensions and new programs are a surefire signal that all is not grand in the economic world and Washington had absolutely no idea what it was getting itself into as it spent nearly three trillion dollars to supposedly prop up the nation’s economy.

With Congress continuing its reach into the chest of the domestic economy, its no wonder gold prices are hitting new records day after day. By the time Washington is done, nothing “American” will have any intrinsic value left.

But just as I said yesterday about investing in the dollar’s downturn, be cautious of jumping on the golden bandwagon. It could be trouble.

So far this year, gold’s Street value has increased by 32%. It’s a strong gain when compared to historic moves, and it beat’s the S&P 500’s year-to-date climb of 22%, but how far will the bulls take it before they say enough is enough and the bottom falls out once again.

After all, gold really isn’t worth a lick.

You can’t eat it. It won’t fuel your truck. It won’t give you shelter and it won’t protect your house (unless you’ve got a good arm). When the dung really hits the fan, gold’s only strongpoint is it’s more valuable than a fancy certificate that says you own 1,000 shares of XYZ.

But even then, it’s only valuable because we say it is.

Let’s be flat-out honest with each other here. What are the chances of full-on economic calamity? I mean the kind of situation where you will dig your gold out from beneath the old oak tree and take it to the grocery store to buy a slab of bacon.

In other words, what are the chances you will actually use gold for its “emergency” purpose?

Slim to none, and I’m more pessimistic about this economy than any Roubini-following perma-bear.

Gold’s a trap, especially for the folks buying at today’s prices and actually paying to store the rare metal in some vault.

If you absolutely have to own gold, keep your ownership to a minimum, a few grand worth of coins or so. Nothing more.

Better yet, take advantage of the gold rush of ’09 and invest in the world’s gold miners. They are the ones fleecing the bandwagon riders and creating the ultimate market-beating profit potential.

In this market it is more important than ever to not be a clueless sheep merely following the herd.

Be the shepherd and lead the lambs to slaughter.

*** As options investors we love to lead the pack. That’s why over at TFN Strategic Trader, we are all smiles today. After locking in gains of 400% last week, we sold another set of call options for quick-and-easy gains of 60%.

On Friday I sent out a buy alert. This morning I said sell. Traders that followed my advice locked in three-day gains of 60%. Way better than gold.

With the global economy taking off without us and foreign interest rates already on the rise, the Fed is desperate to look bullish while acting bearish.

Anybody that has ever tried to prove the existence of Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy to a six year old knows what Bernanke is trying to do. At this point, he’ll do anything to change the subject and focus the attention on something else.

With all of this talk about an increasingly deadly carry trade bubble, it is beyond obvious that American interest rates need to rise. If it doesn’t happen, soon enough all of America’s money will be invested in some high rise in China’s Guandong province… or Saudi oil.

But we all know Bernanke would commit career suicide by lifting a headliner like short-term rates even by a quarter of a percent. The blame for any upcoming financial downturn will be squarely on his shoulders.

For the youngsters in the room, he’ll be blamed for outing Santa Clause.

So what’s the guy to do? He’s already doing it.

The Fed is unraveling its plans to buy a whopping $1.25 trillion worth of mortgage-backed securities and $200 billion worth of other mortgage-related notes.

By March, the Fed’s massive buying spree will be over, once again letting the markets deal with a massive amount of very “un-transparent” securities. The same lion that brought the bull down is once again about to be un-caged, hungrier than ever.

If you thought the market had a hard time swallowing so many mortgage defaults, wait until $1.45 trillion dollars runs straight into 10% unemployment and a real estate market worth a fraction of what it was even a year ago.

And here’s the kicker, just by refraining from hitting the “buy” button, Bernanke effectively raises mortgage rates by as much as 100 basis points.

Let’s see… 10% unemployment, a weakened currency, deflating home prices and inflating borrowing costs. It’s a recipe for disaster.

At least Bernanke gets to keep his job and he gets the keen realization that he would not be in this bind if he never would have meddled with the markets in the first place.

We all knew the day would come when the Fed had to clean up its mess. That day has come.

***As if the markets have not shown enough contempt for government intervention, Uncle Sam is once again trying to throw sand into the gears and cogs of American business.

This time they want us to pay workers for not showing up to the job.

Thanks to a representative from California (there’s a surprise), legislation is working its way through Capitol Hill that would force employers to pay an employee for up to five days worth of sick leave if the worker is diagnosed with ANY infectious disease.

The rational side of my brain says there is absolutely no way this is going to make it the White House. The harm it would do to production is simply too immense to deny, even by politicians.

But the irrational side of me can already imagine the last-minute phone calls. “Sorry boss. I can’t flip burgers today. Got herpes. See you on Friday to get paid.”

Gotta love where we are headed.