Signs of Intelligent Life in America?

Not in the US Government, which plans to write every American a check to give him/her $600 of his/her own money back. What a really dumb idea.

But the public might be getting a clue. According to an LATimes/Bloomberg poll put out on February 27, 2008, only 18% of those polled plan to spend the money. The rest will put it into savings or use it to pay down debt. On an individual level, this is the right thing to do. But the government had assumed that the American public would act like a bunch of drunken sailors on shore leave (the way they’ve been acting for the last 10 years) and squander the money as quickly as possible. This shocking unprecedented common sense frugality will have the effect of making useless the entire check writing exercise, because if people don’t immediately throw the money away on junk, there won’t be any economic stimulus.