Subject: financial solution

[PCH (Paul)]

Hows this for thinking beyond the square? Anyone like to suggest it to Rudd the dudd.


This was an article from the Ft. Lauderdale Times Newspaper last 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,

RE: Patriotic retirement:

There are about 40 million people over 50 years old in the work force, - pay them $1 million each as a severance package with the following 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.

This would cost $40 billion - which is far less than what it's cost so far !

Yours truly,
GWB

Worth a try hey

Cheers

[DJDD]

sounds good in theory but imagine how unhappy everyone who is 49 years old would be.

[Zaps]

Two terms of that guy, yet still some Americans are clueless enough to wonder why their country is in such poor shape.

And I'd rather decline the money than be forced to buy an American car! :-)

[TrevorW]

Yeah and to think they be stuck with American cars !!!!

[lacad01 (Adam)]

Where would the $40 billion come from ?

[Jay-qu]

Except that 40,000,000 X $1,000,000 = $40,000,000,000,000 ..

or $40 trillion

[erick (Eric)]

Originally Posted by Jay-qu

Except that 40,000,000 X $1,000,000 = $40,000,000,000,000 ..

or $40 trillion

Ooops!

[marki]

Originally Posted by erick

Ooops!

Eric, can you become my paymaster please .

Mark

[erick (Eric)]

I remember looking at it yesterday and thinking - "Is that right?" But, it's on the internet - it must be right!

[starlooker (Duc)]

That's the type of creating accounting that caused this economic crisis!

[PCH (Paul)]

Oh well, I only repeated the article

Some confusion could be down to the use of long and short scale systems of numbering. Also, if you google 'billion' one of the replies is "a 1 followed by 12 zeroes". So JQ's calculation is in fact called 40 billion, not the 40 trillion he states.

But I agree, it is all a bit confusing, and now that we we can see how confusing just agreeing on the names of the numbers is. we shouldn't be too surprised that it's all fallen in a heap

[Miaplacidus (Brian)]

Why a car? Why can't we buy telescopes?

[gregbradley]

I billion = 1,000 million.
1 trillion = 1,000 billion.

Where your confusion comes in is there is a US billion and an English billion.

The usual usage is the US billion of 1,000 million.

Greg.

[Robh (Rob)]

Now I finally get why the American banks got into trouble.
They thought they were only investing a billion in shaky mortgages when it was actually a trillion.

Rob