So Bush is releasing, at Obama’s request, that final $350 Billion for churning the economy. That was $700 billion total. I says to myself, says I, what if that $700 billion had been simply passed out to those who paid income taxes? In 2005, 134,372,678 paid individual income taxes. $700 bil distributes to about $5,210 each. Some of us would have put it into savings, thereby helping the banks, at least those banks who got our business. Some of us would have bought new cars, some paid for private schools, some would have used it on mortgages, others bought fine single malt scotch. Seems like all sorts of good things might have happened.

Add Obama’s $800 billion proposed stimulus package into the mix in the same way and we’d each get over $11,000. My oh my what an economy we’d get going!

Of course if the rebates were done more progressively, with those at the top receiving less and those at the bottom more, the results would be different. Yacht sales might have stayed steady but staples and grocery items gone up. The milk industry, for example, might not be in such dire straits.

Anyway, just a rumination. Meanwhile I see, Citi – from which Obama adviser Rubin just retired — says it NEEDS MORE MONEY!! (Natch.)

I see that favorite columnist Bob Herbert has picked up on favorite economist, Dean Baker’s idea for a financial transaction tax.

This would impose a small fee — ranging up to, say, 0.25 percent — on the sale or transfer of stocks, bonds and other financial assets, including the seemingly endless variety of exotic financial instruments that have been in the news so much lately.

According to Mr. Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, the fees would raise a ton of money, perhaps $100 billion or more annually — money that the government sorely needs.

But there’s another intriguing element to the proposal. While the fees would be a trivial expense for what the general public tends to think of as ordinary traders — people investing in stocks, bonds or other assets for some reasonable period of time — they would amount to a much heavier lift for speculators, the folks who bring a manic quality to the markets, who treat it like a casino.

“It raises money in a way that comes primarily at the expense of speculation,” said Mr. Baker. “The fees would be a considerable expense for someone who is buying futures, or a stock, or any asset at 2 o’clock and then selling it at 3. The more you trade, the more you pay.

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