At a population of just over 300 million, that's about $3 billion, so he could do it. I'm not in any way suggesting he should do this (he's already one of the most generous rich people anyway), I'm just interested in how this would impact the economy if he did. For people who are already rich, it would probably not affect them. But it would obviously impact middle-class and the poor would go nuts. If everyone had more money to spend (except BG obviously), would this essentially devalue the dollar and lead to an increase in price? I'm mainly wondering if it's possible that this act could actually hurt the economy, since people would still have the same income as before despite the possibility of increased prices, so once they blew through the 10k they might find themselves worse off? Just wondering, I'm not an expert on economics or anything so I've probably made some wrong assumptions.
I'd pump my share into European and Asian economies. I think I could put together a pretty sweet 7 week vacation, with that, including some loss of wages.
I don't think it would have that much of an effect. It's not enough of a sum of money that people would go nuts. Smart people (i.e. most people) would recognize that it's not that much relatively and save/invest it rather than spending it on new things. They might make one big purchase with it and save the rest. I imagine that a relatively small percentage of people would blow it all buying new stuff, but it probably wouldn't be enough purchasing to really effect the market that much. However, the economy won't really improve through people making one-off big purchases. It needs people to be consistently buying things in order to grow. I suppose it could help the stock market improve a bit, because most people would probably invest at least some of that money, but that's a less-direct way of stimulating the economy than simply going out and purchasing things.
$3 billion is a drop in the ocean; look at our GDP for one. It'd create some positive ripples but for a very short duration. If he can't dictate how the money is spent, it would have even more negligible effect, since I have no doubt many ppl would just use it to pay their rent/mtg/utilities/gas or just sit on it.
They would do what they normally do with their own money - spend it on useless stuff. It might have a marginal negative effect on the environment and would bring us marginally closer to the impending collapse of society as we know it.
It would be something like this: http://www.comedycentral.com/video-clips/wiivgt/chappelle-s-show-reparations-2003
Honestly, it sounds like it would simply re-distribute his existing savings and have little economic effect, as has been stated. It sounds about as effective as a tax break, only instead somebody from the private sector would be going broke instead of the government.
Aw shit... and I used a calculator, too. Dunno wtf happened. Oh well, nobody has $3 trillion so thread is now pointless.
Alternatively, he could use that money to give 20,000+ people new jobs at a $35K/year salary. THAT would help stimulate the economy a decent bit.
