This is from an article in the St. Petersburg Times Newspaper. The Business Section asked readers for ideas on "How Would You Fix the Economy?" This guys kills it.

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Dear Mr. President:

Please find below my suggestion for fixing America 's economy.

Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan. You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan.

There are about 40 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.
Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.

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

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

It can't get any easier than that!

If more money is needed, have all members of Congress and
their constituents pay their taxes...

"Chin up, chin up until it touches the moon sad and forsaken one.
It's you I'm talking to."
-Catch 22

"We will always want what we don't possess."
-Q

While I was feeding my fish in the backyard pond today, a few wasps zoomed by me. I've always been curious but have never actually known exactly where bees go or what bees do during the winter. Surely they're not out and about, I've never seen even one bee during the cold season. So I hit the books. I learned that different species of bees will behave differently during winter, so I stuck with the classic honeybee.

When temperatures fall, honeybees stay in their hives. Some bees will hibernate, but the workers form a huge "bee ball" surrounding their queen. The bee ball is constantly moving, with each bee vibrating his wing muscles to raise temperature. Heat is also generated by the oxidation of the honey that was produced during the warm season. This heat is then disbursed amongst the hive by the wing-fanning of worker bees. These methods warm the hive enough to keep it from freezing. The workers feed on the stored honey and can consume up to 30 pounds of it throughout the winter. And you thought honeybees are working so hard to supply us with honey? Think again, they are working hard to survive!

"We all have problems, we will all face hardships. How we deal with them is what makes us who we are."
-Q

"There will be an answer. Let it be."
-The Beatles

"Time spent on hate is time gone to waste."
-Rise Against

"An eye for an eye only leaves us all blind."
-Sum 41

"Intelligence introduces desire."
-Q

"It might be true that there are six billion people in the world and counting. Nevertheless, what you do makes a difference. It makes a difference, first of all, in material terms. Makes a difference to other people and it sets an example. In short, I think the message here is that we should never simply write ourselves off and see ourselves as the victim of various forces. It’s always our decision who we are."
-Robert Solomon