A Much-Forwarded E-Mail Offering a Novel Approach to Our Economic Crisis

[beamjockey]

I found this message to be highly interesting.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:     FW: How's This For An Idea?
Date:     Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:02:39 -0500
From:     [name of relative deleted out of mercy]
To:     [list of other victims]
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    **WOW, WHOEVER THOUGHT OF THIS IS A GENIUS...!!!!! **

*Subject:* $85 Billion


I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG.

Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in
a We Deserve It Dividend.

To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000
bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+.

Our population is about 301,000,000 ± counting every man, woman
and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up..

So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billon that equals $425,000.00.

My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a
We Deserve It Dividend.

Of course, it would NOT be tax free.
So let's assume a tax rate of 30%.

Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes.
That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam.

But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket.
A husband and wife has $595,000.00.

What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?
Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved.
Repay college loans - what a great boost to new grads
Put away money for college - it'll be there
Save in a bank - create money to loan to entrepreneurs.
Buy a new car - create jobs
Invest in the market - capital drives growth
Pay for your parent's medical insurance -
health care improves
Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean or else

Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks
who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company
that is cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.

If we're going to re-distribute wealth let's really do it...instead of
trickling out
a puny $1000.00 economic incentive that is being proposed by one of our
candidates for President.

If we're going to do an $85 billion bailout, let's bail out every adult
U S Citizen 18+!

As for AIG - liquidate it.
Sell off its parts.
Let American General go back to being American General.
Sell off the real estate.
Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.

Here's my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn't.

Sure it's a crazy idea that can work.

But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party!

How do you spell Economic Boom?

I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion
We Deserve It Dividend more than the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC.

And remember, The Family plan only really costs $59.5 Billion because
$25.5 Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.

Ahhh...I feel so much better getting that off my chest.

>     **WOW, WHOEVER THOUGHT OF THIS IS A GENIUS...!!!!! **

Not the word I would choose.

> To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000
> bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+.

This is a reasonable estimate.

> So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billon that equals $425,000.00.

Since you are sitting in front of a computer right now, fire up a
spreadsheet and paste in this formula:

=(85000000000/200000000)

> But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket.
> A husband and wife has $595,000.00.

Can't wait to see what K wants to do with our share! We'll start
making plans right away.

Having cash in our pockets would be WAY better than making sure a bunch
of banks are insured. Let the banks take their chances! Who needs
banks anyway?

Here's a public service announcement I wrote many years ago. You're
welcome to cut THIS out and e-mail it to everyone you know.

Every so often, Innumeracy strikes.
       Out of all Americans,
       a lot suffer from it.
          But we can win
    the fight against Innumeracy
          with your help.
  All it takes is a few pennies a day.

The proposal is taking the Net by storm. Tell your friends and family about it.

Comments

[bedlamhouse]

Wow. You mean this whole crisis is over $425 mortgages?

Seriously, this might have been written by someone numeranced Britishly, where USian Billion is UK Thousand Million, and UK Billion is a Million Million or USian Trillion.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Seriously, this might have been written by someone numeranced Britishly, where USian Billion is UK Thousand Million, and UK Billion is a Million Million or USian Trillion.

That loophole is closed, because the author explicitly gives the zeroes in stating the bailout figure.

[bedlamhouse]

Readarancy. Gets me every time.

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

I have trained quite a few people to now send this sort of thing to me via email. How? I point out the error, link to snopes or something as appropriate, and do a Reply-All. The sort of person who sends this thing never does a BCC, so I get to point out to a dozen or so people that the sender is, well, not correct. A few of these public humiliations, and they either learn to not forward them, or at least to not forward them to me.

BTW, how many pennies?

[ckd]

how many pennies?

One today, two tomorrow, four the next day, and so on. Payable to me, each day from now until the election.

(The sad part? Not even a drop in the $700 billion bucket.)

[curiousalexa.livejournal.com]

now the really sad part - i had this same thought earlier today. instead of bailing out the mortgage holders (banks), bail out the mortgages (residents).

but it appears, from the comments here, that there's a major mathematical flaw in this idea.

Under the 'no question is a stupid question' clause, what am I missing? How is using taxpayer money to pay taxpayers any worse than using taxpayer money to pay companies?

[bedlamhouse]

Economic-wise only, because a bank or other institution doesn't need 100% of its loans to be backed in cash (paid for in this case) since one assumes the assets backing the loans have some value. The mortgagees, however, need 100% of the loan value in order to pay it off.

Therefore, cheaper to shore up the mortgagor.

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

$85 billion divided by 200 million is $425, not $425,000.

[(Anonymous)]

heh. What's three orders of magnitude among friends?

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Scientific notation would really help a lot of people.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

It all sounds reasonable, but I keep thinking that there is some flaw in their reasoning somewhere. I just don't know where it is.

[(Anonymous)]

This has been ciruclating around the Internet the last few days.

Please promise me that if you receive it you will return it to the sender with the following note:

1. We are not a socialist country - you are supposed to work for what you get - and if most Americans got $425,000 they would run down to the Mercedes dealer anyway - not put it in their kids' tuition fund.

2. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, $85 billion divided by $200 million is $425 - not $425,000 (simple math: 1 billion divided by 200 million = 5, 5 times 85 = 425 -- fortunately, there are still a few Americans left who can do that math in their heads).

I suspect someone from China made this up and put it on the Internet to show us how stupid and gullible we Americans have become. (Why else would Americans be so charged up about Obama - as a country we don't ask questions, we don't dig just one layer deeper - we just fall for the sound bites.)

[mihai-lado.livejournal.com]

I caught someone at work spreading this one yesterday.
It's a really sneaky and powerful feeling to be able to say "do the math" because you already know the answer.