I had a crazy dream last night! And you were there, and you, and President Bush, and Ben Bernanke, and my dog Togo was there too ( dog's name changed for copyright reasons )! I was the Federal Reserve Chairman and it was my duty to take corrective actions to set this economy back on track.
Well first off, I was sitting in my office when I got a call from the President.
I asked where he was at the moment as I needed to speak with him and all of the sudden he was right in front of me sitting on a big pink elephant! He asked if I had the proposal ready for my big address later that afternoon, and as I was about to deliver some bad news I looked down at my desk and there was this detailed proposal all ready to go.
As I straightened my tie I let out a bellowing "Of course it's ready Mr.
President, would you and Mr.
Bernanke like a preview?" As I looked to my left I saw Ben Bernanke sitting on a green sofa smoking a corn cob pipe.
My eyes jumped back to the first page of my proposal and I began to read: As we face these tough times as a nation and as a world, we must remember that we are in this together.
If we are to recover and rebuild the world's sagging economies we must act as a nation united, and as a world united.
We must remember that through the darkest times the brightest light will shine, things will get better, we will recover from this and move on wiser and with a better appreciation for what we have, and with a better understanding of how we are all connected.
The light does not shine for those who don't work to make it shine, and it will not shine for those who don't learn from there mistakes.
So as we work hard together, to pick our economy off the ground and to make that long trek back uphill we must remember.
We must remember how we got here.
Through sacrifice, determination and change we will be back to the top of the mountain again.
Here is a list of purposed directions we can take to add stability and consistency to our markets and our workforce.
* We must extend unemployment to those currently on unemployment aid.
Sending the unemployed back into a shaky workforce will only add to the problem.
We would be sending any homeowner on aid right into the foreclosure pile.
* Temporary tax relief to business owners feeling the affects of the lack of spending, which is just about all small business and specific areas of big business.
This tax relief should be aimed at encouraging owners to not only keep their current employees, but to hire more during this downtime.
Giving business owners a sense of financial security should give the workforce a sense of security as far as their field of work.
If we know we will have our jobs, we spend.
If we are not sure if we will still have a job in a month or so, we don't spend.
Simple as that.
* Some sort of luxury tax or a temporary cap on the profits the oil companies make.
As we suffer in what is now a recession, oil companies have still been reporting record profits.
With a cap on oil profits, it would give the government an excuse to tap into some of that abundance of extra cash the oil companies are "burdened" with.
That extra could help pay back the stimulus money, or it could help to fund the temp business tax relief.
I am sure we could find a good use for it.
* 41% of all people who are set to receive a check in the mail from the stimulus plan have reported that they will use the rebate needed to stimulate our marketplace to pay on credit card debt.
That is an estimated 90 billion that will not be pumped back through our economy.
That 90 Billion is set to go where most of our extra money goes anyway.
What we need to do is negotiate with the big credit card companies to eliminate some of this debt that is eating up our extra money, particularly those who are paying pure interest.
Those $100 payments a month could go to that Starbucks budget, or towards those new shoes you have been eyeing.
* As police departments continue to ticket people and the cities continue to charge large fines and fees for simple traffic violations such as seatbelt, registration, and fix its we will have no extra cash.
Period.
I calculate ( more of a rough guesstimate ) that each ticket in my county is an average of $200 dollars.
Many who qualify for a rebate will only receive $300 in the mail in July.
Now if you were to take my guesstimate and multiply that by the number of traffic stops in your area this month you will understand exactly how we could fall into such a tough recession.
Once again these are only starting points.
As long as we start headed in the right direction, we can not fail.
Now Mr.
President, about my current salary...
I would* And then I woke up! I turned on my TV, and at that moment I realized that we are living out a real nightmare!