Nearly seven years ago, President Bush stood on the flight deck of a warship and declared victory in Iraq. "My fellow Americans," Bush said, "major combat operations in Iraq have ended." A "mission accomplished" banner infamously hung in the background.

It turned out, of course, that we had barely begun murdering Iraqis and sacrificing Americans.

Last week, President Obama addressed the nation and proudly declared victory on the economy. Insisting that he had acted "immediately and aggressively" to avert a second depression, Obama proclaimed, "The worst of the storm has passed."

Uh-oh. Does this mean we have only scratched the surface in terms of government interventions, bailouts, and back-room deals to "rescue" the market?

Unfortunately, yes. When the next big crash happens, the administration will not admit it was wrong to overregulate the economy. It will not even admit its various bills and acts failed, let alone caused the collapse. Instead, we will be told that greedy bankers and selfish managers have intentionally decreased productivity, and this unpatriotic stewardship of our financial system will not stand. We will be told that what we need is even more regulation and centralized control.

The reason we didn't withdraw from Iraq then, and the reason we won't withdraw from the market now, is the same. Politicians can't give up their illusion of control.

Nobody wants to go down in history as overseeing a military or economic loss, and it is impossible to know what would have happened had the president done nothing, or even the exact opposite, so any gains can be chalked up to good leadership and any losses to bad luck. (This is a psychological effect called the self-serving bias.)

If not for his activity, Obama claimed, "unemployment might be double what it is today." Might be; it also could be half.

"More businesses would certainly have closed." Like AIG and GM? Then perhaps more businesses should have closed.

"More homes would have surely been lost." Lost to what? The houses themselves would be fine. Their prices would have declined, and banks would have had to take write-offs. Then, working taxpayers with some savings would have been able to afford a house. Instead, they rent and pay taxes so that someone who paid too much for a house can keep it at an inflated price, maintaining a steady stream of interest payments to the banks and government entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

As little justification as the government had to intervene in Iraq, it has even less to intervene in the markets. We could withdraw our military and economic troops from both at any time. Indeed, Obama promises to have zero combat troops in Iraq by the end of August. (We will see if it actually happens.) There is no loss of face for him in Iraq, but there is in the market.

So how much has Obama just cost us? We can actually calculate it. The "worst of the storm" happened last year when the market was 35 percent lower than it is today. Assuming that the implicit guarantee is in place at least until the 2012 election, we can price the value of the option Obama sold with his State of the Union address. In the language of equity derivatives, Obama sold a 33-month, 35 percent out-of-the-money put option on the market capitalization of the entire world.

Obama's gaffe options are probably worth more than $2 trillion dollars in present value, even if the market never does fall again. That means that if Obama had sold them in the free market, investors would have paid several trillion dollars for a guarantee that the worst really was behind us. Of course, Obama sold it out for nothing, for zero. He sold us out for a self-congratulatory soundbite.

And that's not all. The trillions in lost revenue are just the present value of the option. If the market actually does fall, Obama has signed a blank check with your name on it.

phil@maymin.com