An open letter to the chancellor of the exchequer

[DR]

Dear Mr. Darling,

Please find below my suggestion for fixing Britain's economy. Instead of
giving billions of pounds to banks that will squander the money on lavish
parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan :

There are about 20 million people over 50 in the work force. - Pay them £1
million apiece severance for early retirement with the following
stipulations:

1) They MUST retire. Twenty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.

2) They MUST buy a new British CAR. Twenty million cars ordered - Auto
Industry fixed.

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis
fixed.

4) They must send their kids to school / college /university - Crime rate
fixed

5) Buy £50 of alcohol / tobacco a week there's your money back in duty /
tax etc

It can't get any easier than that!

P.S. If more money is needed, have all members of parliament pay back their
falsely claimed expenses and second home allowances.

[Flash477]

Ageism in operation here?

The fact is that most of the people over 50 will work a darn site harder than some of the younger people today.

Also if you think that 1mill would be enough to do all of the above then you seriously need to retake your maths exam.

A better way to fix the economy is to stop paying millions a day to Europe! and overinflated paychecks to lazy politicians!

[dave87]

Flash - I think it may be in jest

[LWA]

I think it was a joke Mr Flash ;-)

[mmh]

Ageism in operation here?

The fact is that most of the people over 50 will work a darn site harder than some of the younger people today.

Also if you think that 1mill would be enough to do all of the above then you seriously need to retake your maths exam.

A better way to fix the economy is to stop paying millions a day to Europe! and overinflated paychecks to lazy politicians!

[DR]

Ageism in operation here?

The fact is that most of the people over 50 will work a darn site harder than some of the younger people today.

Also if you think that 1mill would be enough to do all of the above then you seriously need to retake your maths exam.

A better way to fix the economy is to stop paying millions a day to Europe! and overinflated paychecks to lazy politicians!

Yep - absolutely. It's an oppotunity for the older generation to have more of a life than having to work 'darn hard' Also - since you don't know my age I think judging other peoples workloads against maybe myself would be regarded as a little unjustified too?

How can £1M not be enough? Show me your working?

It's tongue in cheeky but it shows there are many different options to solving the UK economic problems.

The other coule be taken that everyone should have to work or do free community service rather than living off benefits.

But thank you for the insult and attack - I will remember that I am not on your christmas card list when I go to bed tonight

[Rebel]

Errrr I might know your age Dave, How much will you pay me to keep it6 quiet?

[DR]

Errrr I might know your age Dave, How much will you pay me to keep it6 quiet?

[jim]

We should just invest in public works schemes.

I'm all for building a space elevator, but that would need to be on the equator. So maybe introduce conscription, build some new warships, invade Panama, and then build a space elevator.

Employment - tick
Industry - tick
Long-term investment - tick
World War III - tick

As you said, it's all about finding different options.

[MadduckUK]

space LIFT

[G4Z]

Quite funny but to be honest with you, I think most baby boomers have rode the gravy train enough already and that money would be far better off in the hands of younger people and older poor people. A really nice simple way to do that would be to simply lower the tax burden on them.

[DR]

Quite funny but to be honest with you, I think most baby boomers have rode the gravy train enough already and that money would be far better off in the hands of younger people and older poor people. A really nice simple way to do that would be to simply lower the tax burden on them.

A tax break doesn't encourage people to spend more - you need to create an influx of money to force the system.... rather than throwing it in the banking system....

[G4Z]

A tax break doesn't encourage people to spend more - you need to create an influx of money to force the system.... rather than throwing it in the banking system....

I just do not get your logic. If I pay less tax, then I have more money to spend after all my bills etc are paid. Of course it encourages people to spend more, you can't spend it if you don't have it.

If somebody gave me a million, I would probably sit on the majority of it and try to live on the intrest, how is that encouraging spending?

[pollaxe]

I'd be quite happy to test the results and let you know which way it went for me - anything to help research.

Now, who's going to give me the million and get this very important experiment rolling??

[JPreston]

Making the old folk spend £50 per week on ciggies would also solve the pension crisis .

[Flash477]

Yep - absolutely. It's an oppotunity for the older generation to have more of a life than having to work 'darn hard' Also - since you don't know my age I think judging other peoples workloads against maybe myself would be regarded as a little unjustified too?

How can £1M not be enough? Show me your working?

It's tongue in cheeky but it shows there are many different options to solving the UK economic problems.

The other coule be taken that everyone should have to work or do free community service rather than living off benefits.

But thank you for the insult and attack - I will remember that I am not on your christmas card list when I go to bed tonight

Actually I figured that it was tounge in cheek, and I agree there are many options to solving the UK economic problems. I was just playing devils advocate and provided a counter arguement I'm apologise if you were insulted or felt attacked, that was not my intention It could have been phrased slightly differently.

In terms of the 1 mill would not being enough (my cheeky bit here), well I was thinking that if you gave someone 1 mill, then after they had spent it on what you suggested then how long would it be until the blew the rest on stuff they didn't really need (which is how we got into this mess in the first place) and would then be needing more money

Still, it got people talking about it