One Blogger's Fix For the Economy -- Soup to Nuts

Actually that idea was presented some time ago, and the numbers actually do crunch.

"...the numbers actually do crunch."
Rick McDaniel | Nov 5, 2009 4:18:26 PM

Not hard to 'crunch' the numbers:

40,000,000 x 1,000,000 = 40,000,000,000,000

That's 40 TRILLION dollars. That is over 3 times the entire gross domestic product of the US. Orders of magnitude more than the cost of the stimulus programs applied to date.

Come on people, calculators are not that hard to use. The idea is - and was clearly meant as - a joke.

But that's entirely unfair to us 49 year olds.

This is another one of those articles that demonstrates that journalism majors should be required to take mathematics courses in college.

Where are we going to get the $40 trillion dollars? I don't think there's that much excess capital available in the entire world and it would be a catastrophe in terms of the value of the dollar and inflation if we just printed the money. Even if we could borrow it, the interest on that alone would be (assume 3%) about $1.2 trillion or $1,200 billion dollars per year indefinitely - much larger than any of the TARP or stimulus packages. It sure doesn't work.

Sorry, the Pres has to give the money to his friends and home boys. Now, even were out of hope and change. Smile we have Obama

Allowing early retirement of 5 or 6 million is a great idea. studies of Canadian high school teachers shows that teachers who retired at 62 lived on avg to 72. Teachers who retired at 65 lived on avg to 68. Let anyone over 60 have free or reasonable 'govt' health care on retirement until eligible for medicaid and throw in a multi-year income tax rebate equal to (say) $200k for vacating a job that will need to be backfilled by someone who is otherwise unemployed.
They live longer, have health care, we reduce the unemployement rolls and someone young is on their way to being a valuable contributing member of society.
Make the offer and SEE how many take it.

Looks Like someone over 50 is really desperate to get a million dollars from the goverment....there's surely going to be a lot of people leaving their previous jobs to join the army if this happened!!

This "fix" has been floated for quite awhile among people who can't do the math to get to 40 trillion dollars.
On the other hand if we can blow 1.2 trillion on healthcare we can certainly spend 40 trillion to fix the economy (U.S. GDP for 2009 is coming to 14 trillion). We can fund this by taking over key natural resources like the North Pole. The price oil plummets for the U.S. Next robotics, we build super-robotic plants run on renewable energy like solar, end of tech and textile jobs going overseas to China and India.
Finally we have the IMF dump all the available gold it has into the marketplace, the price of gold plummets along with the rest of the world's economies and everyone starts buying U.S. bonds and dollars at super high prices. That's how you raise 40 trillion dollars - at least on TV.

It dosn't have to be $1million each. Make it $1 mil per married couple over 55. Anybody earning $200 grand or more won't take it. People with out a good retirement plan already, won't take it. It dosn't have to be paid out in a lump sum. The point is to open up some jobs and put the cash in the hands of the people who actually stimulate the economy, the consumer. We see the housing tax credit working. This could be another tool that can be applied on a limited basis. Do not dismiss the idea out of hand. My boss retires, I move up, my job opens up, like that...