T. J. Birkenmeier Birk Plan!
LALATE has the T. J. Birkenmeier Birk Plan! The T. J. Birkenmeier or Birk Plan responds to the Federal Bailout Plan. Do you agree with the Birk (“We Deserved it Dividend”) Plan? Give the money back to us?
Here’s the message unconfirmed that is circulating online currently. And get out a calculator and enjoy the “math”.
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The “”We Deserve It” dividend
I’m against the $85 BILLION bailout of AIG. Instead, I’m in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a “We Deserve It” dividend. To make the math simple, let’s assume there are 200,000,000 bona fide U.S. citizens, aged 18+.
Our population is about 301 million counting every man, woman and child. So, 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up. Now, divide 200 million, 18+ adults into $85 billon – that equals $425,000.00 each! Yes, my plan is to give that $425,000 to every adult as a “We Deserve It” dividend.
Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So, let’s assume a tax rate of 30%. Every would pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends $25.5 billion right back to Uncle Sam! It also means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket. A husband and wife would have $595,000.00!
What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00?
· Pay off your mortgage – housing crisis solved
· Repay college loans – what a great boost to new grads
· Put away money for college – it’ll really be there
· Save in a bank – create money to loan to entrepreneurs
· Buy a new car – create jobs
· Invest in the market – capital drives growth
· Pay for your parent’s medical insurance – health care improves
· Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean – or else
Remember this is for every adult U.S. citizen, 18 and older (including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehmann Brothers and every other company that is cutting back) and of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.
If we’re going to re-distribute wealth let’s really do it! Instead of trickling out a puny $1,000.00 (”Republican vote buy”) economic incentive.
If we’re going to do an $85 billion bailout, let’s bail out every adult U.S. citizen!!
As for AIG – liquidate it.
· Sell off its parts.
· Let American General go back to being American General.
· Sell off the real estate.
· Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.
We deserve the money and AIG doesn’t. Sure it’s a crazy idea, but can you imagine the coast-to-coast block party?!
How do you spell Economic Boom? W-e D-e-s-e-r-v-e I-t d-i-v-i-d-e-n-d! I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion “We Deserve It” dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington, D.C. .
And remember, The Birk plan only really costs $59.5 billion because $25.5 billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.
Ahhh…I feel so much better getting that off my chest.
Kindest personal regards,
Birk
T. J. Birkenmeier, A Creative Guy & Citizen of the Republic
ETA: Of course, we could always try the Swedish solution.
Sweden did not just bail out its financial institutions by having the government take over the bad debts. It extracted pounds of flesh from bank shareholders before writing checks. Banks had to write down losses and issue warrants to the government.
That strategy held banks responsible and turned the government into an owner. When distressed assets were sold, the profits flowed to taxpayers, and the government was able to recoup more money later by selling its shares in the companies as well.
I’m against the $85 BILLION bailout of AIG. Instead, I’m in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a “We Deserve It” dividend. To make the math simple, let’s assume there are 200,000,000 bona fide U.S. citizens, aged 18+.
Our population is about 301 million counting every man, woman and child. So, 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up. Now, divide 200 million, 18+ adults into $85 billon – that equals $425,000.00 each! Yes, my plan is to give that $425,000 to every adult as a “We Deserve It” dividend.
Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So, let’s assume a tax rate of 30%. Every would pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends $25.5 billion right back to Uncle Sam! It also means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket. A husband and wife would have $595,000.00!
What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00?
· Pay off your mortgage – housing crisis solved
· Repay college loans – what a great boost to new grads
· Put away money for college – it’ll really be there
· Save in a bank – create money to loan to entrepreneurs
· Buy a new car – create jobs
· Invest in the market – capital drives growth
· Pay for your parent’s medical insurance – health care improves
· Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean – or else
Remember this is for every adult U.S. citizen, 18 and older (including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehmann Brothers and every other company that is cutting back) and of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.
If we’re going to re-distribute wealth let’s really do it! Instead of trickling out a puny $1,000.00 (”Republican vote buy”) economic incentive.
If we’re going to do an $85 billion bailout, let’s bail out every adult U.S. citizen!!
As for AIG – liquidate it.
· Sell off its parts.
· Let American General go back to being American General.
· Sell off the real estate.
· Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.
We deserve the money and AIG doesn’t. Sure it’s a crazy idea, but can you imagine the coast-to-coast block party?!
How do you spell Economic Boom? W-e D-e-s-e-r-v-e I-t d-i-v-i-d-e-n-d! I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion “We Deserve It” dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington, D.C. .
And remember, The Birk plan only really costs $59.5 billion because $25.5 billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.
Ahhh…I feel so much better getting that off my chest.
Kindest personal regards,
Birk
T. J. Birkenmeier, A Creative Guy & Citizen of the Republic
Bailout, Banking, T. J. Birkenmeier
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Latest Comments:
23 Responses to 'T. J. Birkenmeier Birk Plan!'
Comment and Contribute:
[Policy Regarding Comments]
on September 25th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Divide 85 billion by 200 million yourself and find out.
on September 25th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
This guy’s math is way off.
This would result in $425.00 per person, not the more outrageous $425,000.00.
In the case of this plan, too good is actually too good to be true.
on September 25th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
So has this nimrod figured out that he’s horribly wrong yet?
on September 25th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Somebody isn’t smarter than a 5th grader…
on September 25th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
-Thoughts of a Progressive American-
A Response to Birk’s Economic Recovery Plan-
(excuse typo’s, grammar and some rambling but it was written in urgency and is an exercise in self thought and provocation.)
First, we are all frustrated with the current mess with our economic situation. But now is not the time to turn into angry populism and unfocused energy or selfish demands of checks or money for us.
Birk wrote “Instead, I’m in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a We Deserve It Dividend.” (see rest of the email below)
I am no economist but I can do math and $80 Billion divided by 200 Million americans is not $400,000.00.
It is $400. Even if you take the total of the proposed Bailout plan being discussed today of $700 Billion and the closer approximation of the US adult population of 250 Million we would only be $2,800 for each U.S. individual.
Birk wrote
“What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?
Pay off your mortgage – housing crisis solved.
Repay college loans – what a great boost to new grad (etc)”
Sounds like a good idea except we already did this. We Americans have been living on money binge for the last 8 years. It was called easy financing. WE KEPT MORTGAGING and borrowing from OUR HOMES TO MAKE US THINK we were RICH. And we spent the money in our homes we thought of as “money-making” investments some even leveraging 2 or 3 homes (nine last count for McCain) driving the outrageous boom. We spent the money on Gas guzzling SUV and Hummers that sent our wealth to foreign monarchs and dictators and sent trillions of tons of carbon into the air accelerating global warming to a point that may not be reversible. We bought self-gratifying toys such as I-PODS and I-PHONES, Plasma Flat Screens HDTV’s, we spent our money on consolidating or making the next credit card payments. The whole time crying about higher taxes and letting our childrens schools become breeding grounds for learning mediocrity, structure dilapidation and lost hope by our youth. We let our cities with its deteriorating bridges and grid locked traffic clogged roads with wasted hours of human existence better spent on our families and community service. We neglected our brothers and in some cases ourselves by ignoring healthcare costs and skyrocketing unemployment by by putting our faith in unregulated greed called capitalism with winners and losers and were the winners become bigger winners if more people are losers. were sending our jobs and money overseas and rewarding CEO, wall street companies, and even ourselves with our hope that our pension funds will be there to help us survive our golden years.
As Hemingway wrote , “ask not for whom the bell tolls…. the bell tolls for thee” or as Barack Obama says “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” or in this case “we can blame”. No, now is not the time for asking for personal cash gifts for pedestrian squander. No, it’s time for a REAL CHANGE from the ground up. And I don’t just mean giving in to hysterical populism because believe me I was in LA during the Rodney King Riots and I have seen how fragile society truly is. Let’s get this financial mess fixed with the safeguards that insure we get repaid and maybe even make a profit and we fix the regulation that the the so called deregulating “Right” and the greedy capitolists that ripped us off and start to take care of the real causeof this mess and the bigger problem of current society. Have smart, responsive, and accountable true democratic government that will invest in society, in us. On Schools that work, on jobs that are meaningful and decent paying that produce real value and true good for people (and not just to our pleasure seeking cerebellum that want shiny new toys to fill some lacking emotion of true humanity). Lets cure disease by not just treating the symptoms but the causes and stop making drug companies rich on how sick we are. Have we forgotten Katrina and our urban and rural citizens? Poverty and poor education lead to in-balances and ignorance. How about this UNJUST WAR for OIL and sacrificed life? What do we owe them? Let’s fix this problem by making sure we don’t get suckered by wall street again. Tight regulations is Paramount and so is repayments. And “Demand” Wall Street and Government begin putting the money into CLEAN and NON FOSSIL Based fuels that will preserve our children’s world and quality of life. Let’s invest in our American children (all not just the select few) with quality education and healthcare. Let’s value science and the light it sheds on ignorance and extremist religious views and face our future with eyes wide open. Let’s provide affordable housing and retirement with out having to worry about the gambling mentality and greedy excess of speculation and investment derivatives. Let’s get public transportations and electric cars and energy once and for all.
Let’s elect Obama and congressional representatives and local government that look out for society’s needs not just the individual which usually mean the rich and influential.
You may be saying I am un American or that I am a Socialist or even a Communist and I would say you are totally wrong! I do believe in peoples ability to live their lives and of human creativity and american individualism and even the market place (if managed) and entrepreneurism . Yes I am 100% American and I do believe in the American way. But the difference between me and those that use the cover of the American Value “of self reliance” and “individualism” to not want to seek a solution or real progress to solving society’s problems and its needs are the real un Americans. These are the same people that blame the least of our brothers for all that is wrong and hail themselves as morally better because they some how have made it in this society or belevinig in a uncarring God while mortgaging our future and wasting our resources. These are the same people that blame the poor, the person of color, or the most vulnerable and our undocumented “WORKER” or homeless for all our woes. It’s time to change the way we think and the way we act and what we value. This economic crisis will pale to the challenges we will be facing this century and it’s time to think of ourselves not just as individuals and family units which is still the backbone of American but also of a new responsibility in an ever shrinking and intertwined world and co inhabitants and fraternal members of a society and fellow countrymen and World citizens.
Enough with the me first society and lets start saying WE. and YES WE CAN!
Yes We Can ask for a better future for all,
Gabe
Progressive American
on September 26th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Gabe,
Nice try. More rhetoric devoid of any real plan. Talk is very cheap. I do not wish to live in a socialist country. And by most accounts, neither do any of the immigrants coming to this country by the thousands each day. Your ideas are REgressive and un-American. If you are looking for someone to incite change, Obama is NOT the guy. He has been on the take since his first day on the job in Illinois. His campaign is being financed by those that behead people on live TV because that sells papers. The pussification of this nation leads back to cowtowing to every minority group demanding some sort of equal treatment and a government handout is your means of appeasing them. Education system got you down? Try looking at the family unit first. The leftist media has completely obliterated all reverence for family. Have you watched the Communist News Network (CNN) lately?
Obama will bankrupt the middle class in this country. He is disconnected from the average American and he fraternizes regularly with people who hate this country. His wife has never been proud if this country in her adult life until her husband was chosen to run for president. ? Wake up! If Obama was really about change, how come he did absolutely nothing about the corrupt system in his home state? His track record of being “present” but not voting is NOT one that inspires me to think he is a leader. A community activist for the sole purpose of registering voters to vote for him. That I can see. How is it that Michelle got a $200,000 per year raise just after Barack became a senator and then miraculously, the hospital she worked for (who gave her that raise) received a huge earmark grant from the government? Jailable offense in the real world. False prophets lead naive people. Don’t be naive in this election. McCain is not my first choice, but he is a far better choice than Obama. And don’t get me started on Biden.
The bottom line is I know how to spend my income better than the government ever will. How many times have you seen 5 guys leaning on shovels looking in a pot-hole while one guy works. those guys make 25% more just becasue they work for the government. No accountability for any budget. Not local cities, not states, and not the federal government. I fire people who don’t make their budgets. And we should do the same. As I recall, we had a tea party over this a couple hundred years ago and we are headed in the same direction again if Obama is elected. He says he won’t increase your taxes if you make less than $200,000 per year. However, he will take away your interest write off on your home loan which will effectively raise taxes for everyone in the middle class. He will add a death tax. I already paid my taxes, why should my kids pay taxes on whatever I am able to leave them after I die? Once the middle class is over taxed, everyone will be looking for a handout and we will all be standing in a bread line somewhere. His plan to help the inner cities will do far more damage than good.
His foreign policy is laughable. You can’t reason with a terrorist. His plan to sit down with the leaders of terrorist-hosting nations is just an extension of our domestic “roll over” of the last 50 years. Our fallen heros, from hard fought wars, are in complete disagreement with you.
I’m all for individualism as long as it is NOT at the expense of yet another government layer. The government is too big to see its own feet! We need to put the government on a diet and the way to do that is to cut its intake and limit its ability to grow and its ability to create more debt for our children. Go to a city council meeting and you will see how inefficient and ineffective government really is.
on September 26th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
I just received that email. I don’t know what’s worse T. J. Birkenmeier’s plan; the fact that he probably secretly does the bookkeeping for our government; or that he signed his name to it. In any case, I think I’m going to pass on the Birk Plan if it’s going to cost me $127,500.00 in taxes for $425 or actually $336 if we are counting our population correctly.
on September 27th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
$425 won’t pay off my mortgage, sorry. Next time you flood the internet with wrong headed math, please try to check it out with a calculator first.
on September 29th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
9/24/2008
I think someone’s math needs a little help. $85,000,000,000 ($85 Billion) Divided by the 200,000,000 (200 Million people over 18) Comes out to $425 (Four Hundred and twenty five dollars!! ) Not $425,000!! Maybe this is what they call “fuzzy math”??
I like Birk’s sescenario below better, but even as dumb as our government is, they would probably find someone to check the math!!! Now, if you could talk about 85 Trillion dollars we might be able to get somewhare…… Al
on September 29th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I don’t know if this guy was legitimately putting on a stage, or if he is just an idiot and trying to cover his tracks, but at least he knows his math is wrong.
on September 29th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
What an idiot! I cany believe people are still sending me this email that think its a good idea. Besides the fact the math is wrong it is still redistributing wealth – AKA WELFARE!
on September 29th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Sorry y’all but you are the idiots. The math is correct. Perhaps your calculator does not have enough digits but 85 billion (85,000,000,000) divided by 200 million (200,000,000) is indeed $425,000. You will come up with $425 if you divide 85 million(85,000,000) by 200 Thousand (200,000). I suspect you monkeys deleted 3 zeros from each of the numbers in order to let your calculator do the numbers but you forgot to add the zeros back to the answers. I bet you all are Democrats.
on September 29th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Dave…
Are you kidding?
on September 29th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
So lets say you could do math.
If everybody got that much money, everything would adjust the next day.
A ford focus would be about $125,000 the very next day.
Idiot
on September 29th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
I thought that would get a rise out of somebody. LOL
on September 30th, 2008 at 12:20 am
a
on September 30th, 2008 at 7:10 am
i sure hope dave is kidding… omg. this is the kind of math that got us into the mess we’re in. the bailout is just set up to help the rich get richer. what a mess this is.
on October 1st, 2008 at 12:58 am
OK, we know the math is wrong–but how ’bout only people over 40?—at least they would put the money back into the economy. Maybe then the numbers would work out (don’t know the exact number of people over 40).
on October 1st, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Dave you are the stupid jackass along with T.J. In both your equations they come to $425 moron. I will simplify it for you. Subtract the equal amount of zeroes from each number…..can you handle that? Then you are left with 850 divided by 2…You still with me? That equals $425….Just some more examples of our declining school systems at work.
on October 2nd, 2008 at 5:10 pm
This dude must have went to public school
on October 6th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
What is most distressing is how many people pass on that annoying email without checking the math. Come on, Dave, do the math. You can do it. I know you can.
on October 13th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I wonder what Dave and TJ came up with for the $200 billion bailout. Wouldn’t than be nice.
on October 26th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
How embarassing for people who sent this forward without checking the math. embe