Tuesday, October 29, 2019

A Problem You Really Don't Want

Imagine this problem.  You are a country, with the start-up of a recession.  You have the chief money man sitting there....looking over incoming tax revenue and expenditures.

Suddenly he stops and walks away from the desk.  He's in a panic.

He's got 10 billion Euro extra....collected from the year's incoming tax revenue situation.  It shouldn't be there, but somehow....things fell into play, and this miracle occurred.  Roughly 12-billion dollars extra.

But here's the problem.....what the heck do you do with the extra money.  Lock it into an account, or spend it?

If you were a conservative guy....you'd save it.

If you were a liberal guy....you'd find some social program and throw it into the pit.

Well, this has occurred here in Germany, this week.

Personally, if I were the money-manager....I'd be asking how the heck you accomplished extra tax-revenue....in the amount of 10 billion Euro.  Did you sell more cars?  Did a bunch of Chinese tourists make the difference?  Did the migrants make a difference?  Are Americans buying more German wine at a heavier price?

My guess in the end....they will spend the money unwisely.  It might be nice if you just went to the bottom ten-percent of wage-earners who paid taxes into the bucket, and just write them a 200 Euro check for Christmas.....but I seriously doubt that they'd be that crazy.  Instead, we will probably see some program for 9,000 new statues to be purchased for cities around Germany, for 2020/2021.

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