Bob McCarty Writes

Economic stimulus checks have generated a lot of conversation in recent months. Are they the cure for whatever ails the U.S. economy? While politicians in Washington, D.C., would like you to believe they are, most savvy voters see them as the election-year bribes they really are.

Some people, like Joel Berry at Sweet Tea Films, use them as material for some light-hearted humor like the video above. Others, like Jennifer Buettner (below right), use the checks to improve their personal economies. Two examples of that appear below.

Grow Your Own Business

A mother of three children under 21 months of age, Buettner seized upon the opportunity to realize something of an economic “placebo effect” made possible by the check. In other words, she used her family’s economic stimulus check as seed money to manufacture and promote her new product line, Obecalp.

Obecalp is the first standardized, branded and pharmaceutical grade placebo available for retail sale, according to a news release from Buettner, president of Efficacy Brands, L.L.C., in Baltimore.

“I am excited to receive my economic stimulus check and put it to a good use. When I invest in myself and my family, I am investing in the future of the USA” Buettner said. “I’ve been looking for a way to fund my company and couldn’t have imagined that it would have come from the government. I think it is a great way to stimulate the economy.”

Pay Your Bills

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Waters recommended Paying Your Bills With Your Stimulus Check and explained that consumers pinched by soaring prices for gasoline, granola and green grapes increasingly are looking at their stimulus checks as a means of making ends meet for at least a month or so. Good idea, I think.

If you can’t think of anything to do with your check, forward it to me. I promise to make good use of it.