THE BEST IDEA YET

A month or so ago (on another Blog) I proposed what, at the time, was the best stimulus idea out there. It was vastly superior to the plan that was being instituted at the time but wasn’t perfect (hey, it’s not my job to do that). There were a few flaws in it, but not nearly as many as in the current plan or any other proposal.

After getting some feedback from some very intelligent and rational people (obviously none of them involved in politics) I have developed a totally flawless plan. Here it is in a format that will allow you to copy and paste this and send it to your Congressmen and the President.

(Necessary note: Obviously the current plan has no chance of working, the debt will continue to increase, and even more money will be needed to not fix the current policies so, just like the government always thinks, the money doesn’t matter.)


1) My numbers are rough estimates, but they are based on past numbers thrown out by the government. I imagine they’re not all that reliable for that reason, but I’m using them. According to the US Department of Labor - Bureau of labor statistics, there are 154,650,000 people in the “civilian labor force” and out of that, 9,350,000 are currently unemployed (as of February, 2009). That means 145,300,000 are employed. I’m basing all the logical data on these numbers.
2) With 145,300,000 people in the work force I’m estimating not all them are in dire straits. I’ll guess at least the upper 25% of them are doing just fine. That leaves 108,975,000 working people who can use a little boost (and I’ll ignore those without jobs for the moment). Now, and this is basically arbitrary, I’m going to cut that number in half. If you don’t have a calculator, don’t worry, I’ll explain the numbers as I go. That’s it for explaining the numbers I’ll be using from here on.
3) There are 54,487,500 working people in the US that can use a hand (that’s 50% of the 108,975,000 I mentioned above). The government allows them a “stimulus credit” of $18,000 (tax free) for one year. That comes out to a cost of $980,775,000,000.
4) The other 50% divide up another $980,775,000,000 based on some kind of income scale. I don’t have enough relevant statistics to carve that up.
5) What about the other 25% I cut out? Well, basically, screw ‘em. They don’t fit into the plan.
6) That leaves 9,350,000 people unemployed. Increasing their benefits by 50% up to a maximum of $600/wk. The estimated cost of that for one year would be an additional $22,720,500,000 (at the most).
7) Total maximum cost of the only stimulus plan that could actually work: $1,984,270,500,000. WOW!!! That sounds like a lot, but it’s already cheaper then all the money that’s already been wasted…uh, spent already.

So, what’s all that mean? Sending $18,000 checks to 54,487,500 people? No. What it means is that that those people get a credit of $18,000 with the government. So to explain the “credit” here goes:

1) All those people with mortgages they can’t afford, their payments get made directly from the credit on a monthly basis. That means they don’t have to make a payment and don’t get a pile of money in to their questionable hands but their monthly payment is made. Meanwhile, they can attempt to restructure their mortgage with their bank. If eighteen grand isn’t enough to cover them for at least the next six months, well, screw ‘em, they’re in way over their head. In the meantime, they can save the money they’re not paying out on their mortgage, maybe learn to handle their finances a little better, and inject a few bucks in to the economy.
2) All the people that qualify for the $18,000 credit and aren’t in a position to default get a $1,000/month to pay down their credit cards and other debt. Those in really good shape get to go out and buy a new car or whatever. Again, there’s a good chunk of money being injected in to the economy.
3) Increasing unemployment benefits is just a plain, rational idea. Reforming the system so that a person can take a job and still be supplemented by unemployment insurance would encourage businesses to hire at reduced risk and encourage people to seek employment that they might otherwise avoid. That particular concept is a little too complicated to detail here but, to explain let’s look at this: Unemployment benefits are generally half a person’s gross income up to $405 (a very stupid and inane concept, I agree, but that’s the way it works). So, some guy making $1,000 a week collects $405 and would be a freaking idiot to accept a position paying less. But let’s say, assuming we’re in the real world, he finds a job that pays $600. Take it, or not? Well, if by accepting it, the benefits continue to make up the difference both he and his new employer would benefit. There’s a lot of “tweaking” that needs to be done here and it won’t be easy. It’ll be very, very effective, but it won’t be easy. You may not be able to grasp this concept but it’ll work.

This near perfect plan seems to initially cost $1,984,270,500,000, but that simply isn’t so. Since it’s based on monthly credits and will improve things immediately, it simply won’t cost that much overall. As you may have noticed, the spending occurs on a monthly basis. As things improve (which they surely will this plan) the costs will drop…radically. An initial appropriation of only 25 to 50% would be necessary. As the economy immediately improves it would only be a matter of how dramatically in order to determine if more borrowing would be necessary.

On the overtly positive side, massive amounts of capital won’t have to hand over to poorly run businesses to skim off their share, yet they’ll be getting the cash they think they deserve from their horrible investments. Enough public pressure will be focused on every single member of government so they’ll be forced to do something constructive, and it’ll be vastly harder to grab a piece of the taxpayer’s money for their own purposes. Much, much less money will be wasted and will actually go to the people that need (and deserve) it the most. Yeah, maybe that 25% that I excluded will be pissed, and maybe they are considered to be influential voters, but the Bush Depression has pushed us well beyond that kind of thinking (hasn’t it?). The overall, total effectiveness of, basically, crediting working Americans with $1500/month to aid in the recovery of the economy will reduce the current debt and actually be very constructive in stimulating economic growth.

On the negative side, the executives that run the companies benefiting from government handouts won’t be able to get their taste. In turn, the guys in Congress won’t get their perks. That’s the only roadblock to this vastly superior solution to the current Depression. What does that tell you?