The Rational Argumentator

A Journal for Western Man

How Do We Solve the Looming Social Security Crisis? Sell the Moon and Give Us Back Our Money!

Sell the moon claimed for us by Neil Armstrong on July 20th, 1969 when he stepped down on it from a space ship bought and paid for by us and planted the American flag on it. Since we need the money now to avert a looming social security crisis, I say sell it, our moon for twelve and a half trillion dollars on eBay. The twelve and a half trillion dollar price is a figure that I heard is the size of the total social security ''problem,'' so we can use it by setting the same as the starting auction price to sell our moon on eBay.

If there is not a large enough GFSK (Global Fund of Some Kind) out there to buy our moon outright, then we can partition it up into an equivalent number of lots as say, the size of my lot here in Minnesota, which is about 50 feet * 120 feet or 6000 square feet which equals a bit more than an eighth of an acre. Or if square feet and acres is not your units, then my lot (what we can call a D-lot) is about 600 square meters, 18 of which would equal a hectare and so on. You can do the math yourself: the formula for the Surface area of a sphere is S = 4 π r² with r = the radius = half of the diameter, which--for the diameter of the moon at about 2,000 miles--becomes (1000 miles * 5280 feet/mile)² * π * 4 = etc., so that the total surface area of the moon (ignoring irregularities introduced by mountains and valleys and the vertical walls of craters) is around 60 billion D-lots.

Hence,. $12.5 trillion / 60 billion "lots" = about 200 bucks per lot, which doesn't sound like too unreasonable a price to me to expect on ebay (wouldn't you pay 200 bucks for your own moon lot?) ...

But ... of course we have to ask ... is $12.5 trillion enough to cover the 2.89 times that we identify in our upcoming March '08 Newsletter as the actual size of the social security problem?

Let's say: not.

And so continuing then, let's find the actual total price for the moon that we should be using.

I heard or read somewhere that in today's world it takes around $177,000 to produce an annuity that will pay an individual person $1000 a month for life.

Hence from our 2.89 times calculation as the amount really due me for the FICA monies the government confiscated from me over my working life we can (and do) project this to all 80 million baby boomers and in so doing we get 40 trillion dollars, not 12.5 trillion as the minimum price we need to set on eBay for our moon sale (take $1000 per month as a typical Social Security check then take the $177,000 required to fund it times 2.89 for the sinking fund factor and then times 80 million baby boomers and we get, $177,000 * 2.89 * 80,000,000 = $40,922,400,000,000.00, which, for talking purposes, rounds to 40 trillion dollars).

And since 40 trillion is 3.2 times 12.5 trillion, the 200 bucks per lot becomes about 600 bucks, which still isn't too bad unless we translate our D-lots into a more universal unit,. like the acre. Since there are a tad more than 7 D-lots per acre, the 600 bucks per lot translates to under $5000 per acre which still doesn't sound too bad, unless we compare it--the barren moon land--to say land costs in the desert ...

Since you can buy a hell of a lot of land in the (Arizona- Nevada) desert (if I am to believe the various road side land for sale signs I saw on my road trip through these areas a few years back) for 5000 bucks and then also not to even mention that not all the land on the moon is prime (e.g., what about the lots on the dark side?), surely they will be worth less, but I suppose here we could halve their asking price and then double the sunny side lots' prices and then we have the same (total) thing. Then we just have to adjust for the ''barrenness'' factor.

If this barrenness factor approaches a hundred to one (or if my 12.5 trillion dollar estimate to start with is really a $125 trillion bill which is a number I've also heard in relation to the social security ''problem'') then relatively speaking we will be faced with falling moon lot prices before we even get started and the plan to pay for social security via ONLY selling the moon will not work ...

Hence, we need more (government) assets to sell and so to meet this need see ILP following:

ILP

I predict that the United States of America, once all the cards are on the table, will be seen to have a lot more assets than just the Moon. This is not to mention that if we wanted to, we could spend/invest some of our 2.89 times stated social security income due us on a manned mission to Mars. I for one would voluntarily allow the government/NASA or some future private space enterprise to invest at least a fourth of my 2.89 times due me for such a mission--and then eventually partition it (Mars) up into lots and sell them on eBay, too. Mars's diameter is 4000 miles -- only half of the Earth's diameter. But Mars, unlike the Earth, does not have 3/4ths of its surface covered with water, so that you could in principle build on each and every square foot of it, just like on the moon plus at twice the diameter as the moon it means 4 times (Remember that surface area here is a squared function) as many D-lots to sell. But if, because of timing, this Mars idea won't work for today's baby boomers, maybe it could be something for tomorrow's beyond-the-baby-boomers retirees who have just started having their monies confiscated by their government so that eventually the social security problem will be resolved for all ... fairly ... but until then and as part of the stepwise process, to be just, we still need more today to get our 2.89 times money back, so, let's ask some pointed questions.

How much are the national parks worth?

The national forests?

The mineral rights on every lot sold in america?

Oil leasing rights? = offshore? + onshore?

Western lands? I heard the government owns a goodly number of acres out west (including their mineral rights of course), where there are reportedly a gazillion tons of coal and a gazillion barrels of shale oil. How much would Shell pay for Shale?

And what other assets are there? Does the government have hidden assets? If not houses in Florida, what about embassy buildings in countries that literally hate America? How much could we get for those buildings on eBay?

That is, I predict once you look into it you will be surprised beyond surprise as to just how many assets the U. S. government, not the individual people, actually has. (Was this a hidden message in the movie, National Treasure, that is, that the riches (assets) in this country are as real as and as good as gold???)

Gary Deering is the founder and head of RaIse Books LLC.

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