> At the current 2 percent annual interest rate, we can pocket a nice $200,000 a year to live on.

Of course, in a world where the money supply increases overnight by 300 million people x $10 million = 3.0 × 10^15 = 3,000 trillion dollars, things are a bit different.

Instead of total societal wealth of $15T (total market cap) + $15T (M 3 supply) + maybe $30T (housing) = $60T, we suddenly have 50 times that.

With 50 times more cash chasing the same amount of goods, gasoline is suddenly $200/gallon - as is milk. A large pizza that used to be $15 is now $750. A song on iTunes is now $49.95.

Enjoy making that $200k/yr stretch!

> Big banks and hedge funds, among others, have
> taken this cheap money

Except hedge funds have no access to funds from the Fed. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

The real problem though is the existence of the Fed. At least Ron Paul supports its abolition.

Also, my guess is if you did what the author recommends, pretty much the same people who are wealthy now would remain wealthy and the same people who are poor now would remain poor.

Why don't we just make the minimum wage a million dollars an hour? Then everybody can be rich!

When I offer this solution, I have never met a single advocate for minimum wage who cam begin to offer a rational reason for why it won't work.

Obviously, the op-ed piece is satirical. She even says "a modest proposal"

The real joke, to me, is that she used to be head of the FDIC, an institution that, as an unintended consequence of federal deposit guarantees, encourages riskier business practices by commercial banks.

And to address the unemployment problem, we could pass the elevator safety and economic opportunity act.

Without having actually read the article, am I safe to assume that Sheila Bair was being facetious?

What can go wrong? We will owe the money to ourselves!! :-)

Erm, did the phrase "a modest proposal" not tip you off that this is a joke?

... just in case people are wondering what the phrase "a modest proposal" has to do with it, it's a reference to Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick".

In his work he humorously suggests that the poor Irish people should sell their children to be butchered as food for the rich.

It is pretty hilarious, if you have a twisted sense of humor! Which I do.

Actually, I had proposed to President Obama, my two senators and my representative, back when the "stimulus" was being proposed that we should give each citizen $1 million. That would stimulate the economy, plus everyone would be rich and could then be taxed to pay for it. I never did get a response from the President, my two senators and my representative. It seemed consistent with Paul Krugman's theory that the "stimulus" wasn't big enough.

TJIC just summed up anything I would have to say on this subject. Expertly worded, at that.

Of course, this is what is currently happening anyway. The immorality of the Fed's system is that their criminal friends on Wall Street get to bid prices up with this new money, making everything from lofts in Manhattan to organic almond butter infinitely more expensive.

Research "hyperinflation" for Germany in 1923, Israel in 1985, or Zimbabwe in 2008. If you dig enough, you may see some fascinating trends of how that all came about (and how it was all solved)

"...does the loan amount seem even minutely in the realm of reasonable or doable?"

Not even minutely. But as absurd as it is, it's no less absurd than what the politicians actually have done, are doing and propose to do.

The deficit means you've borrowed the money anyway, but the politicians got to spend it for you.

Way back when Rush Limbaugh had his TV show (late 90's) that showed after midnight I was a lowly paid security guard at a Metropolitan Housing Authority (MHA) which housed SS and (SS Disability) SSDI residents.

I sat in the lobby and watched the show via a 13 in B&W TV (I won't go in to details). One of the residents in the apartment, because he was 4'3", would occasionally watch it with me. He couldn't understand that Rush was being facetious when he said that everyone's income should be subsidized to $1,000,000 regardless if he earned nothing or $25K or earned greater than $1M.

That was when I realized that we had lost several generations.

Inflation is an artificial construct, designed to systematically destroy the wealthy of the common people. Every year since the U.S. dollar went off the gold standard, the U.S. government and the federal reserve, have been robbing every single citizen blind.

BTW: 1 oz of pure gold has the same relative worth today as it had in 1905, if not more.

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

-- kipling

$100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at which time it will be worth absolutely nothing.
Robert A. Heinlein - Time Enough for Love (1973)