Our economy will survive.  Despite the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) about our future, we will be fine.  It will just take time.  The devil is in the details with our recovery though.  Do we let the market sort it out, or have our government try to save us.  The consequences of either situation can be dire.  One might take longer to fix than the other.  But in the end, if we do not allow the market to correct itself, we are looking for an immediate solution.  That’s fine with me I suppose, so I came up with the best 3 immediate fixes I could think of.  Think of it as ripping a bandaid off your hairy arm.

3) Flatten Houses
Real estate prices tumbled because of too much supply relative to demand.  We built too many!  If your house is foreclosed, your house is destroyed.

Why it could work:  In a matter of 6 months enough houses would be gone that real estate prices will stabilize.  The deterioration in supply will save everyone.

Why it won’t:  The bank that owns the loan would have to write the entire property off as a loss, instead of just a portion as a foreclosure would.  Intense lobbying would stop this from happening, even if it did help them save other houses.  We’d rather have everyone lose a bit then have a few lose everything.  Plus, neighborhoods would start to look weird after a while.

2) Give $300,000 to Every Citizen Over 18
Heard about this one through my maternal advisor, (aka Mom).  She heard a discussion on the Dave Ramsey show that the bailout of $700 billion proposed in Washington could simply be divided up to every American over 18, which would be $300,000 each.  Just so you know, Mom wasn’t buying it either.

Why it could work:  With $300,000 a piece, we could all pay off our homes, cars, credit cards, and lift everyone out of poverty.

Why it won’t:  You can’t trust Americans with credit card limits of $5,000.  Think you can trust them with $300,000 they don’t have to pay back?  They aren’t going to buy houses, they are going to waste it on luxury items they always wanted.  Everyone will want another house, spending construction into an upward spiral we’ll all suffer from.  The sudden demand to buy things will send inflation of 1,000%, sending our economy into a deep depression.  The money would be lost, our dollar would be worth less than used Charmin, the United States would cease to exist.

Bonus Why:  Someone’s math was just a bit off.  Dividing $700 billion among the population over 18 is closer to $3,000, not $300,000.  $3,000 a piece would prop up the economy as long as the last stimulus did.  It was artificial, and delayed the inevitable.

1) Sacrifice a Hedge Fund Manager
If we’re going to have the financiapocalypse and go back to a barter society, we might as well revive some old religious ceremonies.  When the gods were angry, the people would always sacrifice someone to appease them.  We could go for a financial virgin like myself (never owned a home) or one of the truly corrupted, like a hedge fund manager or mortgage broker.  I vote hedge fund manager, only because they make more.

Why it could work:  The Aztecs, Hebrews, Egyptians, Native Americans, Greeks, Chinese, Celts, Africans, and others all found the practice useful to some degree.  Considering the lack of interaction between these groups, they all thought of it on their own.  There could be some merit to this.

Why it won’t work:  You can’t kill a hedge fund manager, they’ve already sold their souls to become managers in the first place.  How can you kill something that is neither dead nor alive?

Note to the crazy, I’m not condoning sacrifice or murder.  Don’t try to kill a hedge fund manager.

Related posts:

1. Top 10 Ways the Government Can Help Our Economy
2. Simple Ways to Save Money
3. “Why Pulling Out of Iraq Won’t Save Money”
4. Minimum Wage: Helping the Little Guy or Destroying the Economy?
5. Someone knows how to make money in a down market

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