Our current stimulus plan is one massive transfer from Peter to Paul. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is an amazing document. It is 258 pages of funding opportunities, grants and programs totaling $825 billion, in addition to all of the previous and parallel efforts by the Treasury, Fed and FDIC. It sounds like trick or treat time. A billion for you, a few billion to you, and here, here’s an extra three and a quarter billion for you. That’s mere pocket change when everyone is thinking in terms of trillions now. However, if you own a casino or gaming organization, a swimming pool, aquarium, zoo or golf course, forget it. You’re not eligible. You have to find a different sugar daddy. All other comers are welcome.

Where is Peter in all of this? Look in the mirror. If you are a taxpayer, or if you use money, the value of which will be inflated away, or if you have children or grandchildren who will be footing the bill in the future, then say hi to Peter. You are him.

The stimulus plan injects mountains of previously non-existent cash into the economy, money that is made from nothing. The idea is that, if you use enough money to “prime the pump”, the economy will start working on its own. The problem is that the government has been priming the pump for decades. The booms and busts are the result of constant priming.

The underlying assumption behind the pump priming and the stimulation is that there is not enough demand for goods. Our fearless leaders want to stimulate us to buy, even though we were being condemned for consumerism when it was convenient for them. If our government really wants to stimulate our economy to the maximum amount, I have the foolproof solution.

I propose that the government buy printing presses with official currency plates for every family in this country, the bigger the denominations the better. That way, we, as consumers, wouldn’t have to wait for the banks to get stimulated in their own good time. We wouldn’t have to wait for dinosaur car companies to have a miracle rebirth. We each could stimulate our own economy.

Let’s say that printing presses would cost $10,000 each. If we use a nice round number of 100 million family units in America, it would take a measly $1 trillion to forever solve the problem of not having enough demand. Politicians could save all of the trillions of dollars of stimulus wasted by pouring them down the black hole they’re trying to fill now.

People could print money for everything their heart desired. They could dine at five star restaurants, drive luxury vehicles, live in huge mansions. They would be able to support a level of demand reserved now only for politicians, bankers, mega corporate execs, lobbyists, United Nations representatives and environmentalists.

It is obviously preposterous to believe that everybody making their own money would stimulate the economy. Nothing is produced by counterfeiting except dollar bills. There is no productivity, no real wealth creation. All that would result is a vast increase in worthless dollars. In that case, the winner in the economy would be the one who could counterfeit the most, the one who inflates the money supply and devalues the dollar the most. The losers are the ones who don’t counterfeit, or counterfeit the least.

The reason that it is preposterous to believe that the stimulus will work when private citizens do it is precisely the same reason that it is preposterous for government to do it.

The false stimulation may give some people profits, but those profits will come from the loss of purchasing power of the buying and tax paying public, not from the wealth creation process of free markets. It is inevitable that there will be a large number of “stimulus multi-millionaires”, those who most efficiently rape the system and the taxpayer.

The problem for investors these days will not be finding what industry or what business will be most productive, but rather, who will win the stimulation game. Good luck, Peter, you’re going to need it.