

The Birk Economic Recovery Plan- bad math warning - jhancock

This email has been going around.  I don't know of an official webpage or its original source.  Google turns up many copies.<p>"The Birk Economic Recovery Plan" basically says that $85 billion given to AIG equals $425,000 for each U.S. adult (assuming 200 million adults).  The email includes much discourse on what Americans could do with this cash instead of using it for corporate welfare.<p>Of course, the math is wrong.  $85 billion divided by 200 million is $425 per person, not $425k.<p>But take this general idea and assume the bailouts reach $700 billion to $1 trillion.  Then the per person amount is $3500 to $5000.  Is it interesting at this level?<p>Would it be more interesting if the amount given each adult American forced you to pay off debt first prior to making other spending choices?
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fuzzyMath
Sure as you say the math is bad and numbers are old and too basic. But the IRS
issued around 76.4M (as of June 2008)stimulus checks and expects to issue as
many as 124M by year end. According to the irs.gov FAQs The next bailout is
now looking like $700B -- so $785B total - divide that by the IRS numbers and
-- Tell me that isn't an even more interesting level.

