There's 40 million people over 50 in the work force. Give $1 million early retirement checks with stipulations: 1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed. 2) They MUST buy a new American CAR. Forty million cars ordered Auto Industry fixed. 3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage . Housing Crisis fixed.. 4) Congress needs to pay their taxes.... or they forfeit their chair. Their retirement funds can pay their taxes bill off. Finally, make Congress retire on Social Security and Medicare. I'll bet both programs would be fixed pronto! It can't get any easier than that!!
I chuckled and hope you did too. But it keeps getting forwarded to me as a serious suggestion. Saw it on Facebook yesterday and couldn't help but point out the math. Went back to look for it today and the poster had deleted the post. I don't blame them, seriously suggesting this is simply highlighting your weak math skills.
Let's see: 40 million retirees x $1 million each = $40 TRILLION. The Tea Party is rioting over $700 billion, never mind something 57 times bigger. As a reference, the entire U.S. economy is about $14 trillion (annual GDP) and the U.S. net worth is about $51 billion.
The email is good for a laugh, until you notice people take it seriously. Math teachers where are you?
I wonder how releasing 40 trillion dollars would affect the inflation? Imagine the prize of cars when 40 million Americans simultaneously are rushing to the car dealer.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wonder what WTO would say about the idea that they were only allowed to buy American cars?
If only economy was this simple...
Yep. Since no gov could borrow that amount, they would have to print it, resulting in massive inflation. Since the auto industry is producing around 10 or 11 million vehicles per year, the 40 million new car purchases amount to about 4 years of sales (even ignoring regular demand). And we're not even mentioning the more esoteric secondary effects on the banking system- with all those mortgages paid off, banks would embark on a fresh lending spree, no doubt creating a new financial bubble in something. I wonder what a collapse in the dollar because of the printing would do to say energy prices? Oh, it would be quite the mess. Like you said, "if only the economy was this simple". So true.
ReplyDelete