Comments on: Bailouts: Ever think of it this way??

By: javanut

javanut — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:47:27 +0000

The math dosen’t add up, but I like the intent. If Obama really wanted to put himself ‘up there’ with the great presidents he’d think more like this, rather than bailing out the perps

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:21:47 +0000

What about the many non *US Citizens* who also pay taxes? Even if the math works out to $425, its kinda unfair to take taxpayer’ money to pay only the US citizens!

By: Jeff Standen

Jeff Standen — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:15:50 +0000

Assuming the math *did* work out to $425K for 200M people (85 x 10^12- US$85 trillion), it would expand the entire U.S. money supply 8X (based on the 2006 M3). Inflation would raise the cost of everything to balance the supply of “out of thin air” free money. It’s a pipe dream.

The necessary dark side of capitalism is that you have the potential for extreme achievement *and* extreme poverty through concentration of capital. If you pull up the low end, you pull down the high end. If you do that too much then we’re all given an allowance, and hard work or innovation become unrewarded.

Ideally producers would always be directly accountable to consumers. When money appears out of nowhere it’s rarely a good thing for a free market.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:40:12 +0000

I figured, but was too tired last night to be sure. Still sounds like a great plan though. I wonder if its bad math like this that somehow got us in the mess we are in. I have a friend who used to develop software for the financial industry and let’s just say the stories I have heard will make any engineer (or really any human being for that matter) cringe.

By: Andrew Durdin

Andrew Durdin — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:22:35 +0000

$85 billion (85 * 10^9) / 200 million (200 * 10^6) = $425, NOT $425,000.

Not quite as dramatic as your forwarded email suggests, which apparently used the older primarily UK billion (10^12) to reach an erroneous conclusion.