The economy is still weak and I think it needs a kick start before we slip back into stagnation or worse yet, recession. In 2009 Obama tried the “give everyone $300” trick without much affect. It was early in his presidency and made many people happy. As part of that stimulus package he pulled the” $800,000,000,000 thank you for contributing to my campaign” trick which lined the pockets of his mob buddies, but didn’t do diddly for the American people. It may have actually been affective if he had waited until after the economy had bottomed out. Waiting several months it may have been clear that some of the big losers would have already been gone or on their way out. Then in 2012 he spent another $400 billion on unemployment extensions, tax breaks, and infrastructure. The recovery has been stretched out for so long now what do we do? Let’s look at what’s going on now and why before we look into the fix. Obama has made it clear that he favors wealth redistribution and feels that since he was reelected that the majority of Americans agree. The problem is he hasn’t had control of both houses since half way through his first term. So, how is he going to achieve his “Robin Hood” trick? Simple, spend, spend, spend, it’s okay if we don’t have the money we can just print, print, print more money. The value of the dollar will drop making the money the rich have worth less, the poor don’t have any money so it won’t affect them. Of course we all know this won’t work, but then neither did any of his other tricks. Unfortunately our grandchildren will be left to pay the bill for all his “tricks”. Wait a minute Scott, I heard that the treasury has been buying back bonds. Bonds are what the government uses to borrow money, so that must mean we are paying back people we borrowed from right? Well yes, but we are paying them back by printing more money. A parody you might understand is you take a bottle of whiskey, remove two shots from it, now pure two shots of water back in, see you still have a bottle of whiskey. By watering down the money supply dollars becomes worth less than they used to. So, what can we do, invest in infrastructure, come on, that never works. All it does is help the owners of a few big construction companies get richer. They do hire a few people for these big projects, but then lay them off when the projects are completed. What we really need now is “Scott’s 400 and 10 Plan”. I think the timing would be perfect at this time. How it works is the government invests $400 billion, I say invest because actual costs will be less and in the long run they could turn a net profit. The money is used to supply grants to employers who hire the unemployed and under employed. I know you’re thinking, but Scott $400 billion is a lot of money, how many people do you think it can really put to work? Remember Obama’s $800 billion deal only put between 2500-3000 people to work. Well, if you follow my plan up to 10 million people will be removed from the ranks of the unemployed or under employed. Got your attention now? There actually are employers out there that are looking for experienced personnel with specific talents. The problem is there are many talented people out there that do not have experience in the specific areas that these employers are looking for. What I’ve found is that talented people are capable of being extremely good at doing many different things, but when they find the first thing they are good at they stay with it. When the economy got bad many of these talented people were displaced. Some are still on unemployment, some had to take low paying jobs that don’t need their level of skill, and some simply gave up. Here’s how we are going to get these people back to work. Employers are offered $20,000 if they hire an unemployed or under employed person for 12 consecutive months of full time employment at $17 per hour or more. After that first year if they keep that person they get $12,500 after the next 12 months, they must also give a minimum $1.50 per hour raise. After the next 12 months the employer will receive $7500 if they keep the person and give them a $1.50 per hour raise minimum. After 3 years the person is making $20 per hour minimum and has established themselves in the company. Okay, let’s do the math, $20,000+$12,500+$7500=$40,000, $40,000 x 10,000,000=$400,000,000,000 or $400 billion. $20,000 does not cover the entire expense for someone making $17 per hour, but it is a nice subsidy. The employers that participate in this program will have to invest a certain amount into the person, so they won’t just hire anyone, but they will hire people they would normally pass up. Someone on unemployment make about $10,000 a year, cutting first year costs to $10,000, even less if you figure they will be paying taxes too. Under employed will have to qualify by proving that at some time in the last five years they had a job where they made $20 per hour or more and cannot work for their current company or one that is owned by or owns their current company. If we can put 10 million people to work in real jobs the impact on the economy would be substantial. Government programs such as unemployment and food stamps would see relief and tax revenues would rise. The influx of real wage earners would have a domino effect that would have a positive influence on GNP and with a possible unemployment rate under 5% the economy could actually be considered healthy. Let’s get this country back to work, tell your lawmakers you want “Scott’s 400 and 10 plan”.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 23:13:18 +0000