Dumbest of This Week's 5 Dumbest: All About the Benjamins

About 36% of investors find it dumb that the United States Mint misprinted $110 billion worth of new $100 bills that were set to enter the market in February.
By Miriam Reimer ,

(Dumbest of This Week's 5 Dumbest article corrects an earlier version that stated the U.S. Mint misprinted $100 bills.)

NEW YORK (

TheStreet

) -- The Treasury Department's misprinting of $110 billion worth of new $100 bills that were set to enter the market in February was the dumbest thing on Wall Street this week, according to readers of

TheStreet

.

As of late Friday, more than 36% of the readers who

took our poll

thought that the U.S. Treasury's mess-up was a particularly dumb action.

As it turns out, the government can't even print money correctly.

On Tuesday, word got out that the new artificial-intelligence infused, retina-scanning $100 bills that were scheduled to enter the market in February had turned into a $110 billion headache. In short, the new bills -- featuring state-of-the-art security protections like a 3D security strip and a color-changing image of a bell -- failed to print properly.

According to

CNBC

, 1.1 billion of the new bills have been printed. And many of those -- and nobody is exactly sure just how many -- are unusable because a crease in the paper resulted in blank areas turning up on the bill.

Thus, some $110 billion in Benjamins -- or what

CNBC

described as "more than 10% of the entire supply of U.S. currency on the planet" -- is now resting comfortably in vaults in Fort Worth, Texas and Washington, D.C. Sorting through the bills by hand to find the keepers could take up to 30 years. But no need to worry, a computer system could cut that time down to just one year -- although someone might want to keep an eye on that computer this time.

With approximately 28% of the votes, firing the Santa at Union Square

Macy's

(M) - Get Report

in San Francisco for making a suggestive joke to parents was the second-dumbest idea on Wall Street this week.

By all reports, John Toomey was a beloved Santa at the Union Square Macy's in San Francisco for 20 years ... one who was blessed with the gift of being able to recognize the difference between children and adults. He tailored his routine accordingly, occasionally mentioning to adults that he was so jolly because he, after all, knew where all the naughty kids of the world lived. When other adults would say they'd been good, Toomey would wryly respond, "Gee, that's too bad."

But this past Saturday, a couple who visited Santa was shocked -- shocked! -- that any mall Santa would possibly toss a few suggestive jokes at a few parents. They

dutifully reported Santa to Macy's, who summarily fired Mr. Toomey.

As for Mr. Toomey, the Christmas spirit prevailed. Nick Bovis, co-owner of

Lefty O'Doul's sports bar and one of the people who had taken his extended family to see Santa John for those 20 years, hired him.

Santa will be appearing at Lefty O'Douls every day from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. until Christmas Eve.

News that Congress reached across both aisles to "compromise" and extend Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy was considered dumb by 21% of the voters.

The last quarter was the highest on record in the history of the U.S. for corporate profits; the

Dow Jones Industrial Average

I:DJI

and

S&P 500 Index

I:GSPC

are up 10% this year; and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has been saying for some time that high unemployment will continue to be a serious issue at least until 2012, and only decline to 8% by then.

Yet suddenly, amid a rebounding market and a job outlook that has been sober for some time already, tax cuts for the affluent -- which President Obama swore as an election promise to do away with -- are a vital political concession to keep America and its economy moving forward.

The federal government's unprecedented level of transparency was voted dumb by 9% of

TheStreet

readers.

The Obama administration released scores of data about its

financial stability programs, showing taxpayers

exactly where their money is going,

engaging with the populace in ways never tested by the executive branch before.

But it is also shedding light on a bunch of things we don't really give a damn about, such as a new-fangled

Web site, with links to a Twitter page, Facebook page, Flickr page, YouTube page and an "Open Government forum," as well as an

introductory blog post by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Nearly 6% of voters thought the

proposed merger of Borders (BGP) and Barnes & Noble (BKS) - Get Report

is a dumb idea.

The idea of a merger did not germinate in the minds of either management team, coming instead from hedge fund manager William Ackman who, with a 37% stake in Borders, is likely looking for any way to salvage a sinking ship.

Ackman said in a filing on Monday that his

Pershing Square Capital Management

is prepared to fund an offer of $16 per share for Barnes & Noble, valuing the deal at about $963.2 million.

Technology advances have put pressure on Barnes & Noble and Borders to keep up with both

Amazon's

(AMZN) - Get Report

Kindle and

Apple's

(AAPL) - Get Report

iPad. (The latest blow came on Monday when

Google

(GOOG) - Get Report

rolled out its e-book store, Google Editions.)

"It's a dreadful idea," says Simba Information analyst Michael Norris. "In the time that it takes for the merged company to design their business cards, Apple, Google and Amazon will be running ahead in e-reading and e-book retailing."

-- Written by Miriam Marcus Reimer in New York.

>To contact the writer of this article, click here:

Miriam Reimer

.

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http://twitter.com/miriamsmarket

.

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.

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Disclosure: TheStreet's editorial policy prohibits staff editors and reporters from holding positions in any individual stocks.

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