An "Outstanding" Economic Plan

In the (excellent) book, "Crimes Against Logic," one section is about most people's inability to deal with very large (or very small) numbers. Here's an example from an e-mail forward that I just received regarding the economic bailout.

The Birk Economic Recovery Plan
An outstanding plan!

I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 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 bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+. Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up..So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billon that equals $425,000.00.My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a We Deserve It Dividend. Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let's assume a tax rate of 30%.Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam. But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket. A husband and wife has $595,000.00. What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?

[It goes on for a bit more, but for brevity's sake, I've cut this part.]

PS: Feel free to pass this along to your pals as it's either good for a laugh or a tear or a very sobering thought on how to best use $85 Billion!!

Well, this was good for a laugh, but probably not for the reason that the author originally intended. In case the math doesn't seem right to you, it's because it isn't. $85B divided by $200M is $425 not $425,000. This makes the plan a bit less outstanding. Also, it makes the dig at the $1000 incentive a tad ironic. Apparently, however, there are enough people who didn't get that "this ain't right" feeling for this email to make it to my inbox. One of these people (who didn't remove her email signature from the email thread) used her company email account and listed her department as "Payroll/Accounts Payable." Yikes! There should be some concerned people at a medical office in Oklahoma.