In 2003, George Bush floated an "economic stimulus" plan, spending $670 billion dollars over the following ten years to create 2.1 million jobs over the following three.

Let's do the math on that: $670 billion divided by 2.1 million jobs equals a whopping $319,047.62 per job.

I'm having trouble sourcing the image, but back when I was originally reading about this plan, I remember seeing a cartoon with some smartass quipping "Mr. President, I need a job. Can you just write me a check?"

Think about it. If you simply popped that check into a 5% CD, you could live on $15k a year on interest alone. Nothing to sneeze at, as salaries go, but not bad for sitting on your butt like the rich who actually got this money. More than that, there's no reason you couldn't, say, invest in a modest house for that, interest free, and still go out looking for a job to ice the cake, knowing you didn't have to take just any burger flipping job that came along just to afford diapers.

Alas, no. We had to give that money to the rich unemployed, not the poor unemployed. Hopefully, they would create jobs. Maybe. If we asked nicely.

It seems we're more interested in using jobs to control people than in actually supporting people left behind by our current means of economic organization.

I'm still looking for answers to the big question: did we actually get 2.1 million jobs in the past three years? If you've got any links, I'd appreciate it, but the bits & pieces I've found so far indicate a mixed bag. Maybe we only got a million new jobs, instead of two.

In which case, you'd get $640k per job, instead $320k, and your interest-bearing CD would earn you an income of $30k per year instead $15k.

*sigh*

Comments –Nato