How to save the economy?  Give everyone forty acres, a mule, and a private jet

Okay, I don’t mean literally to “give” a private jet to everyone. I merely would like to point the benefits of a tax policy that encourages people to get rich enough to buy their own airplane. Do you own a private jet? I don’t, and most people don’t.

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Would you like to be rich enough to own a private jet? Most of you would say yes. If the president has his way, you will never be rich enough to own one. Maybe you are saying to yourself “well, I didn’t want one that bad, anyway.” But even if you have resigned yourself to your jetless fate, what about your children? Wouldn’t you like to see your children successful enough to own their very own jet airplane? Even if they never actually buy one, wouldn’t it be nice if they had the option? The President just can’t seem to see what should be very plain. He wants to punish people for being successful, as if their success takes away from other people. To the contrary, no one becomes successful without pulling other people up as well. Just let your imagination run wild for a minute. Try to imagine some of the different ways you might get that rich. And keep it serious. I’m not talking about winning the lottery. I’m talking about ways to build a fortune over a period of time. Maybe you are a construction worker, so you stick with what you know. You start your own company, grow gradually, and one day, you land a huge contract for a highway or a skyscraper, which you parlay into other big jobs, and next thing you know, you’re rich. In that scenario, how many workers would you have to hire? How many trucks would you have to buy? How many cranes or other pieces of special equipment? Who makes those trucks, cranes, and other pieces of construction gear? How many hot dog venders will earn the money they need to get out of debt by setting up a stand close to your construction site? How many bartenders and food servers would the tavern down the street from the construction site have to hire to accommodate the influx of hungry and thirsty construction workers when their shift ends? What will those newly hired construction workers buy with their new salaries that benefits the economy in some way. Cars? Houses? Boats? The point is, you can’t become a construction company millionaire without being responsible for a whole lot of other jobs, both directly and indirectly. In fact, you can’t become any kind of a millionaire without raising many other people up. If you go into the fast food business, you may struggle at first, but in a few years, you might own a dozen restaurants. How many jobs were you responsible for in the process of getting rich? You may open a consulting firm, a dot com, a retail store, a factory of some kind, a production company, or any number of other businesses. And you can run all of those as a one man show, or a husband and wife show, or as a family business, and make a decent living. But if you want to get wealthy, you are going to have to hire people, buy things, and build things. Nobody loses. Everybody wins. Look at Jeff Bezos. He started Amazon. He ran it on a huge loss for several years, but is now a billionaire. How many people work for Amazon? How many people are independent dealers who sell merchandise through Amazon? I don’t know the exact answer to those questions, but it’s safe to say that Amazon creates a lot of jobs, directly and indirectly. And, using his billions, Bezos started a space flight company in 2004. It’s called Blue Origin. How many engineers and designers does Blue Origin employ? How much stuff do they buy from other companies, supporting jobs in those companies? How many people will Blue Origin employ if the company takes off? (No pun intended). So let me facetiously put forth a solution. Let’s think of some huge incentive for people and/or companies to buy a private jet. Now, it would defeat the purpose of my suggestion if this big prize made any easier for someone to buy a jet, so no direct tax credit to aid in the purchase. Maybe a tax incentive after they’ve had it for a year. To qualify, you must buy the jet completely out of your own resources. I don’t have a clue how many jets that would get sold as a result of this, and wouldn’t know how to begin figuring it out. I do know that if a lot people tried very hard to reach that level of success, and if the government had tax policies that rewarded accomplishment instead of punishing it, some would reach it. Others would miss the goal, but would still be better off financially for having tried. A high level of success would not only create gazillions of jobs in whatever industry the success was achieved in, but what would it do for the airplane industry itself? Building a plane requires very large assembly lines, staffed by hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of union workers. It requires buying aluminum from companies like Alcoa or Reynolds, who would then have to hire more miners to meet the demand. The tires for the landing gear would have to bought, creating business for Firestone, Goodyear, Michelin, and others, all of whom would have to hire more people if the demand for their products increased. The planes have to painted, upholstered, equipped, hangered, flown, maintained, fueled, and insured. More jobs created each and every step of the way. I guess I’ve discovered a method to generate pretty good financial advice. Listen closely to what the President has to say, and then do the opposite just as quickly as possible. So, you can keep your forty acres and your mule. But the private jet? Bring it on. That’s the way I see it.