How the Stimulus Package Works

[BigBoy99]

It is a slow day in a small rural town of Pumphandle, and streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit.
A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night. As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.
The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.
The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op.
The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit.
The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner.
The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything.
At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves. No one produced anything. No one earned anything...
However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a Stimulus package works.

 

[Lee Barner]

BigBoy, how did you know i worked at the Co-Op? lee

 

[MSgt G]

Everything was sold at cost; no mark-up/profit? Seems like everyone lost before even starting.

 

[jimbo728]

The Three Stooges would be proud of that one. The story reminds me of one of their skits.
Jim

 

[Sistema1927]

If that is the way that it works, then why are we going to pay for it for generations to come?

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

All the decades of renting out apartments, I probably had 30 working girls live in my units. Anything from street walkers, call girls to mistresses! I never saw one that extended a credit line, and they were never short on cash! (Until they fell in love!)

Ivan

 

[Jon651]

It is a slow day in a small rural town of Pumphandle, and streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit.
A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night. As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.
The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.
The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op.
The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit.
The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner.
The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything.
At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves. No one produced anything. No one earned anything...
However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a Stimulus package works.

I appreciate the humor, but basic maths will tell you that at the end when the tourist leaves with his $100 bill the hotel owner is now out $100...

Who now can't pay for his next delivery from the butcher,
Who now has to get credit from the hog farmer,
Who now has to ask the guy at the Co-Op to float him a loan,
Who now has to "borrow" it from the prostitute,
Who now has to put her room bill on credit,
So now the hotel proprietor is out $200...

What the original joke is about is money supply (not really about debt) and how just printing more money can't solve your problems - only make it worse the next time the supply decreases.

But hey, it is still funny...

 

[Univibe]

Funny.

How it really works is, the world's richest university, and some large publicly traded corporations, snatch the money that "small businesses" were supposed to get.