This was an article from the St. Petersburg Times Newspaper on Sunday. The Business Section asked readers for ideas on "How Would You Fix the Economy?" I thought this was the BEST idea. I think this guy nailed it!Dear Mr. President,
Patriotic retirement:There's about 40 million people over 50 in the work force;
pay them $1 million a piece severance with three stipulations:
1) They leave their jobs. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.
2) They buy NEW American cars. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.
3) They either buy a house or pay off their mortgage- Housing Crisis fixed.All National financial problems fixed!!!
Sincerely,
A Fellow American (Z: how's about $500,000 each? That might work, too!)
(thanks to our buddy, Jay)
35 comments:
Sounds good to me! Brilliant!
You can't expect me to get by on a meager million, do ya?
Sounds too easy, and you know the old saying, if it's too good to be true, it probably is.
$500,000, new vehicle, fix house, buy some needed items(American made), put in emergency generator and solar panels...
That puts some handy people to work,(new sod and irrigaton system) will put yard people to work.
Works for me!
G*D bless and MARANATHA!
tmw
I vote for him for President.
VERY well said.. I think we all feel as you do
Let's see, 40 million people buy a new house and put 40 million homes on the market.
Yup, that sounds like Republican thinking to me.
I'm also trying to figure out where the capacity to buy 40 million American cars comes from. And what about union labor? I thought the right hated unions.
Better rethink this one folks. What happens when the party is over and you are stuck with the price and asset inflation?
Personally I think we should do it for people over 46 years old :-)
Seriously though if we could solve issues such as insurance, then I think it could be a good idea. A couple could live off 2 million dollars for the rest of their lives.
Glad you all like it, too! It's a fun concept..especially the million or 2 each!!
Ducky! Something you might appreciate is that those 40 million houses (you really shouldn't take everything quite so literally, you'd have a lot more FUN in life!) can be reduced in price or GIVEN to those people your people just caused to lose their own homes! What do you think!?
If it hadn't been for that social engineering project Freddie and Fannie pressured banks into so EVERYBODY COULD HAVE ONE, we wouldn't even have to be talking about this!
MK: If you come back, please know I couldn't publish a comment at your No.1 article, simply wouldn't 'take'... Some great humor on the comments on the one below the top one, eh!? THAT post did take my comment.
can be reduced in price or GIVEN to those people your people just caused to lose their own homes! What do you think!?
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Well as usual I think the right doesn't think things out.
They are good at finding formulas for huge asset and commodity bubbles and then never taking the blame for their work.
Good job here, I saw your comment on DD2's blog and I wanted to stop over and say hello.
Gee, Ducky...we'd GIVE them away and you're not happy.
I thought that's what your people were going for..taking from us and giving to people who won't work?
By the way, this isn't an economic plan we're sending to obama to disregard before reading, it's a JOKE, Ducky,, it's actually something that could work. But, we know it won't.
MyFiles, thanks for coming by..please come again!
Hee hee. That sounds like a plan!
PERFECT!
BZ
Sounds like a plan!!!
I hate to be the party pooper, but that proposal would cost $40 trillion. I don't think that that is feasible. Unfortunately. But regardless, targeted stimuli is the word of the day (like the wrecking premium in Germany).
Mr.Z
what about union labor?
yeah duhkkky what about union labor???
I'll take it, even though I'm not anywhere close to 50. I'll just put it in savings until I do turn 50, will that work Z? :)
Blessings.
Short, sweet, and very to the point!!!!!
I'll take that deal.
I did the math too, but I did it wrong, came up with 400 trillion. 40 trillion is already too much of course. But I like the idea.
How about raising the age to 58 or something? Maybe that would kick enough of us out that we'd have far less than forty trillion?
I don't know...I just like how it sounds! Sorry some took it quite so literally, DUCKY.
Elbro..where did union labor come in? Ducky just won't answer .. "odd"
I feel like SUCH a wet blanket, but..... the plan would give only 40 people 40 million.
Aside from that, after all those others who don't get this windfall stop rioting, and things calm down, those 40 people would hire lawyers and sue for the right to spend their new found riches any way they want.
That is after they pay the government income tax on one million.
After paying the taxes, and lawyers, they'd need their jobs!
This is America 2009, after all.
Sorry Z, please, don't taze me!!!
Pris
Not quite getting you, Pris!? Only 40 people?
Z, I see what you mean. I misread it and thought it was 40 million dollars, as well. A thousand pardons. I hope I'm not tazed, I'm already embarrassed.
On the rest, I was just funnin, except I think there's a modicum of truth in the fun.
Pris
Pris, you're so bright I figured there was some allusion I wasn't getting! NO problems!
And ya, the rest of your comment wasn't too far off reality!!!!!
Oh Jeepers! My math moron streak is showing again.
If three-hundred-million people each received a million dollars, the cost would be incalculable (by me anyway). Mr. Z is right. It would cost hundreds of trillions.
And anyway, if we all had that much money, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be WORTH much in purchasing power.
Everything is relative. As I've said so many times, my grandparents raised EIGHT children --- in New York City --- on TWENTY-DOLLARS a WEEK. But that was literally a century ago.
Which reminds me that the Pennsylvania Dutch reportedly say, "The farther ahead I go, the behinder I get."
The dollar of 100 years ago bears no resemblance whatsoever to the dollar of today, and the dollar of today bears no resemblance to the dollar of fifty years ago.
Inflation makes the automatic pay raises negotiated into the system by unions farcical. The extra money just isn't WORTH the effort it took to screw it out of the bosses.
~ FT
WHEE! Time for BOSTON LEGAL.
I love it!
'Bye for now,
~ FT
PS: 500K is NOT enough to live on in this economy, and a million isn't anything LIKE what it used to be.
Most don't realize that a government pension is like having a couple of million churning out interest --- at NO RISK to the pensioner, because the government can always screw the pension funds out of the taxpayers.
"Moneyed people" always have their funds at RISK. Investment is the fuel for our economy --- and there'd be no money to TAX without it.
How stupid the Marxist notions of egalitarianism really are!
~ FT
Paying people (w/ taxpayer money) not to work? Viewing jobs as a zero-sum game (one retires so another can have the job he vacated)? Advocating the protectionist policies of FDR that prolonged the Depression? Creating a captive market for certain producers? Making restrictions on how people can spend their money? Tio Bowser no likey.
Tio Bowser
Take it easy, Tio, they'd be RETIRED already!!
\
Z, I thought the whole premise was that they are being paid to retire, thus the alleged number of new jobs.
Vieleicht verstehe ich Witzen nicht, aber diese Idee gefaellt mir nicht.
T-Bow
well...ya, you're right.
But, it's not a LITERAL suggestion, and I believe it's not SO bad.
If people want to retire early, here's a great plan. and it clears the way for new employees to work......
Blogging gefelt mir nicht lately, if you want to know the truth.
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