I must confess I have not read all the posts on this impressively vast thread but somewhat dissipated thread.
It sometimes gets slow in the office but not that slow.

So, as a first time contributor to this discussion, I will turn my attention to the original post by Notes.

I sincerely hope that this is meant to be amusing because as a serious economic programme we are in “moon is made of cheese” territory.

In fact it’s making my head spin to identify and arrange all the entirely false premises on which it is based.

After much reflection and several rewrites, here is my top five:

1) Employment is not a cake which can be divided or rearranged on a plate. By withdrawing a certain number of people from the labour force you most certainly do not create an equal number of jobs for other people to fill, however intuitive this may appear.

It was this kind of thinking that led the poor misguided French government to introduce its famous 35-hour working week, and we’ve all seen how many jobs that created. (preceisly none)

The only way to increase employment is to:
- stimulate demand or, more probably, do no nothing to constrain the market forces which would, left to their own devices, stimulate demand
- ensure that the labour market is free and fluid

2) The withdrawal of all that knowledge and experience from the labour force would have disastrous consequences. In many professions it is workers in this age group who contribute the greatest value as they are both training the next generation and putting all the experience they have built up to use.

3) It is philosophically flawed in the context of a liberal economy to tell consumers what they have to buy. This would change fundamentally the values (free choice, limited role of government…) on which the system is supposed to be based.

4) Having introduced such a plan, the USA would quickly suffer the effects from other troubled economies introducing similar nonsensical protectionist measures in imitation. The effects would soon be catastrophic, not only on the USA economy but the world economy.

5) Such a programme could never be enforced. What sanctions would apply to noncomplying over 50s? What constitutes an American car (is it made by a US registered company? do all the parts and materials have to come from the USA? who is going to check and how much would that cost? etc…)

But, of course, you were only joking, Bob!!

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