I’m sure many of your readers recognized Steve Moltner’s letter about the “We Deserve It Dividend” (“Take a direct approach”, Oct. 16). They have seen it in their in-boxes; it’s a piece of e-mail spam that has been circulating for several weeks. The version I’ve seen claimed to be by one “T. J. Birkenmeier, a creative guy and Citizen of the Republic.”
T. J., too, was creative, unfortunately. AIG’s $85 billion bailout divided by 200 million adult citizens gives everybody $425, not the claimed $425,000. Congratulations to us all, we’re rich! All we need is three extra zeroes. And since zero is worth nothing, it shouldn’t be hard to get a few. Hey, why not print up $425,000 for each of us?
This article appears in Oct 23-30, 2008.