Sometimes we scam ourselves simply by not paying attention.

An email has been circulating lately entitled “I think this guy nailed it.” It’s a copy of a contest submission to the St Petersburg Times (Florida) website. It was posted February 8, 2009, by David Otterson, who suggested that the economy can be fixed in the following manner:

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force. Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with these stipulations:

They leave their jobs, which creates 40 million job openings. Unemployment fixed.

They buy new American cars; 40 million cars ordered. Auto industry fixed.

They either buy a house or pay off their mortgage. Housing crisis fixed.

This is a lot less than the billions given to banks and insurance companies.

Now I hear people railing about how the government is so crooked by not using such a logical, quick, and inexpensive way to rescue America. Washington is just giving their corporate friends and themselves taxpayer money while things aren’t getting any better. Greed! Fraud! Corruption!

Whoa, hold on there! Washington hasn’t scammed you. I don’t believe Mr. Otterson has scammed you, either; he’s just bad at math. You scammed yourself by believing this email in the first place.

One million dollars times 40 million people equals 40 million million dollars, otherwise known as 40 trillion dollars ($40,000,000,000,000). At the time of Mr. Otterson’s suggestion, the US government had pledged 11.6 trillion dollars in bailouts. Quadrupling this pledge is not exactly a cheaper, more efficient way to go. In fact, it’s simply not possible.

So let’s say the 11.6 trillion dollars that the US could barely afford in the first place was divided among Mr. Otterson’s 40 million early retirees. Each would get $290,000. That’s 40 million new job openings, yes, and many of these retirees might be able to afford a new car plus a new home, but then most of them would desperately need to find new jobs to pay next month’s bills.

Auto industry fixed temporarily (the retirees cannot afford to use their new cars and will have to sell them - and find that they can’t), housing crisis fixed temporarily (again, not affordable to maintain, too expensive to sell), unemployment still a nightmare, and the US taxpayer will not own a red cent in equity from all this. A total disaster.

Listen up, folks: Pay attention to the details. Check the math. Google the concept to see what thinking people say about it. Not just for this ludicrous plan, but for all the too-good-to-be-true ideas you get in these irresponsible emails.

People are such mindless sheep. No wonder it’s so damn easy to scam you.

Scrud Kelley

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