Posted by
m0t0r1zed on Thursday, October 30, 2008 6:54:46 PM
Just a wacky idea.
Instead of a bailout, what if you gave the $700 billion to banks to set up retirement accounts for American citizens, i.e. privatized some of the Social Security obligation? Wouldn't that kill two birds with one stone?
1) the future obligation of Social Security payments would be removed for Americans that chose to switch over to privatization (however, the gov't would no longer be able to tax them for it ... so there would be some revenue loss)
2) the banks would be able to lend that money since most people would leave the money in there until retirement
3) Americans would feel much better about the bailout since they'd suddenly have big, fat retirement accounts filled with moolah
For example, 7 million Americans x $100,000 = $700 billion
Meh. I'm not a fiscal policy wonk so dunno if this idea even makes sense, lol. or how the actual numbers would work out. I haven't rly thunk it out, like, ya know? wuh? and i dun have figures, statistics, or the desire to actually work the computations and whatnot. Prolly a stupid ideer. anyhoo ...
edit: whud are grammar?
edit2: also, you'd have to watch the banks more carefully since you wouldn't want them going bankrupt AGAIN and wiping out all of the minty fresh, private social security accounts. :P