Growing the Economy

I have many duties as the United States' most distinguished economist. During my tenure at the Office of Imaginary Numerology I was entrusted with solving long term crises such as preserving the solvency of Social Security, to short term problems like managing the national deficit. After the recent recession and sluggish recovery, I was ordered (by the president) to draw up new government policies for improving the economy. The following proposals as well as the outline for my new “Greeting Card” pet project were submitted to the president during fiscal year 2005, and are pending review and implementation.


Lowering the National Deficit
According to the business cycle, the economy will expand, peak, and then contract. After it hits bottom, it recovers and the whole process starts anew. During contraction, the government is forced to spend money to hasten the recovery process. This adds to the national deficit. Therefore, it is advised to eliminate all government spending during an economic recession. In my professional opinion, doing this will alleviate the national deficit. The only side effect is a possible depression and extremely high unemployment rate. Of course, this can be offset by changing the definition of “unemployment” to exclude people who have no income. It is also recommended that the Federal Reserve raise interest rates to about 50%. This will encourage people to invest in high-interest government bonds, thus solving all our financial problems.


Keeping Gas Prices Under Control
If the Laffer Curve teaches us anything, it's how to keep gas prices down. Using the curve, we see that if the tax rate is too high or too low, the government only takes in a fraction of what it could potentially amass. To find out if the problem is the tax rate, the national tax on gasoline should be increased by $20 per gallon. After one week, the gas tax should be eliminated and massive subsidies should be given to the petroleum and auto industries. After another week or so, both industries will realize that money can't actually buy true happiness. They will then cooperate to build newer, more fuel-efficient cars. Once the demand for gasoline decreases, the price will drop.


Dealing with the Chinese Government
Over the last decade or so, China has emerged as a capitalist power. But while they may be economically dynamic and almost magical, they have been buying up dollars. Over the long haul, being indebted to the Chinese government poses a security risk. The easiest way to eliminate China as an economic threat is to force them to import more than they export. Unfortunately, they have a massive labor force and import far less than they export. Countless hours of research concluded that the one thing China needs to import the most is oil. It is therefore advisable to sell the Chinese government the entire Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as well as our arsenal of nuclear weaponry. This will cause China to import more than it exports, leaving its citizens completely demoralized and disillusioned. Their economy will crumble.


Fixing Social Security #1
Social Security is the most successful and widely loved entitlement program in American history. Unfortunately it is a “pay as you go” system, whereby the younger workers of society have a portion of their paychecks divvied up among the elderly who also used to have a portion of their paychecks removed. This will stress the system when the baby boomer generation retires (they're already starting to). The only way to counteract the baby boomer crunch is with, get this: another baby boomer generation. A third world war would certainly accomplish this goal, but the people of the early 22^nd century would just end up facing the same insolvency problem that we do now. Therefore, after the third world war, the government must repeal all environmental regulations and actually encourage unhealthy personal habits. This will give the second baby boomers a much lower life expectancy, preventing them from reaching retirement and sparing the people of the future from having a fourth world war.


Fixing Social Security #2
Immediately raise the retirement age for all baby boomers to 80. Those who choose to retire sooner are covertly shipped to organ harvesting plants.


Slowing Down the Housing Bubble
The price of homes has been increasing dramatically for some time now. This is great for homeowners who are selling their houses, but some economists warn that it parallels the dot-com bubble that burst a few years ago, leaving hundreds of computer geeks unemployed. They foolishly think that increasing prices on houses is unsustainable and will lead to economic ruin. Bah, I say! The housing bubble will never go bust. There is no reason to spend any time trying to fix this problem, for it does not exist. If anything, the government should be trying to get the prices on homes to go even higher!


Eliminating Poverty
The amount of people living in poverty has gone through the roof over the last four or five years. This is terrible but in that same time, the amount of millionaires has also gone up. The two cancel each other out, leaving us with no social problems whatsoever.

*UPDATE*

The President has recently approved all of my proposals, as well as my “Greeting Card” project. As a result of my research, progress is assured!

*UPDATE 2*

Despite choosing the latter option for fixing Social Security, the President was forced to switch to the former. A world war became inevitable once the Chinese started launching the nuclear missiles we sold them.

*UPDATE 3*

It would appear the petroleum industry hasn't gotten tired of money yet. Since the war began, they've raised the price of gasoline to approximately $50 a gallon. Technological innovations have ceased due to a strange global economic paralysis caused by hyperinflation. My “Greeting Card” project seems to have destabilized the Moon's orbit.

*UPDATE 4*

While the Earth may have been rendered uninhabitable by nuclear fallout, I am fully confident that my “Greeting Card 2” project will give us enough time to evacuate to Mars before the Moon's orbit completely decays.