Quite apart from all the other complaints here, I question the wisdom of handing 4 terabucks on people with the express imperative of ceasing to earn or produce (i.e. “after you pay off what we’ve told you to pay off, start playing and buying consumer goods”). At best, we only have to worry about what happens to them when they burn through all that free money. At wsrst … Dropping that much liquid cash into any economy is a disquieting picture. We’ve already seen what dumping trillions of imaginary dollars into the American economy in the form of easy-access revolving credit accomplished.
Furthermore, we’re talking largely about the same generation that historically blew enormous amounts of cash, sequentially, on hippie gear, discos, cocaine, designer jeans, hostile takeovers, the S&L fiasco, and dot-com speculation. You wanna hand these people a million each? Wow. I’ll just sit up here in Canada, pop some popcorn, and watch the show.
There is a presumption that workers over 50 are not as productive as the young pups. Where is the consideration that older workers are more stable in the workplace and are often the owners of the institutional/historical knowledge of the organization, among others?
Fixing the current economic mess is more than just pumping dollars here and there. IMHO it is going to require a completely different cultural mindset than what we’ve had up until now. I’m convinced we are not in a recession nor on the edge of a depression. Instead, we are on the abyss of a fundamental fracturing of our economic system coupled with partisan self-importance across all three branches of the federal government. But this is more GD than GQ.