Fixing Britain's economy

[MaryBS]

Dear Mr. Darling,

Please find below my suggestion for fixing Britain's economy. Instead of giving billions of pounds to banks that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan. You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:

There are about 20 million people over 50 in the work force. - Pay them £1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1. They MUST retire. Twenty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.

2. They MUST buy a new British CAR. Twenty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.

3. They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed.

4. They must send their kids to school / college /university - Crime rate fixed

5. Buy £50 of alcohol / tobacco a week there's your money back in duty / tax etc

It can't get any easier than that!

P.S. If more money is needed , have all members of parliament pay back their falsely claimed expenses and second home allowances

If you think this would work, please forward to everyone you know. If not, please disregard.

what British car would that be then, Mary?

I think these are still British... and these too but I know what you mean!

Er.... Mary....? How old are you?

Silly girl, if they all consumed £50 a week of tobacco and alcohol the liver and lung treatments on the nhs would completely cancel out all the 'fixing'.

ps everyone, look, she HAS posted it in 'jokes' so don't go all economist on her!

nah, taxes on smoking outweigh even the most extreme calculation of the cost of smoking-related disease several times over. (I've seen the figures.)

So I think Mary is on to a winner - only can you make sure there are strict requirements that adults over 50 have to give their kids a share? Pretty please?

Hheee heee! I was only asking as I wondered if MAry was over 50!!!

Huh! I'm 42!!!

I guess you could say I'm retired, was made redundant at end of March...

and there aren't 20 million people over 50 in the work force. But apart from that....

Well, let's sort out the work-shy buggers then Pan.

Hmm, I reckon this is an adapted version of an American original. The 20 million would make more sense and no-one in this country says 'auto industry'.