It is difficult for me to admit this even to myself, but apparently my parents, and possibly many other adults, have lied to me. Not once, but many times in the last six decades. In monetary terms, if I had a nickel for every time I heard this line, I wouldn’t need a stimulus package to get me through these terrible times. What’s the line, the untruthful, blatant lying line? “Money doesn’t go on trees!” Is there anyone reading this who has not heard that expression multiple times?
It’s what they told us when we asked for money and they claimed not to have it. It’s what they told us when they convinced us that the only way to make it in life is to work hard, get a good job, etc. After all, they told us, there is no other way to make money--it doesn’t grow on trees!
Imagine my shock upon hearing that the government is coming up with $6,000,000,000,000! It is not possible to believe that they have that kind of money sitting somewhere in a drawer or mattress. Because if so, why are they always functioning at a deficit and saying they need to raise taxes? It’s not possible to believe that they borrowed that money from someone, like China, for instance. I can’t imagine even China has that kind of money just lying around. Did they borrow it from us, the taxpayers? Have they issued bonds for six trillion dollars? Would anyone in their right minds lend the government that kind of money now when just paying interest on our current debt is on track to top $1,000,000,000,000 in the near future?!
So, that leaves only one alternative--money must grow on trees. Not on trees that we see daily, but somewhere, where only government personnel can access and collect it, there must be money trees.
Even those money trees have limits, though. Otherwise, why would the government allocate only six trillion dollars in these times of nearly total economic standstill. Why not 10 or even 20 trillion?! Why not give each of us a guaranteed income of 100K per year at least for a year or two? That would surely ‘stimulate’ the economy. It must be that even the government’s money trees need time to grow more cash.
It must be these money trees that those people were referring years ago when they said they came to get “Obama money”. Maybe these trees are the ones Mike Bloomberg was referring to recently when he said farming was so easy, “all you have to do is plant a seed, add water...”. Is that how he got so many billions?
I guess there may be one alternative. When we used to tell our children that we didn’t have cash, they would say “just put your plastic card in the wall and get some”. Do government personnel have such a wall? Unlikely. I therefore must conclude that money does grow on trees. Hopefully the next disaster won’t happen until all the money we’re harvesting now has time to grow back!
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