| Submit your comments on this article |
| Economy |
| Federal Spending: Killing the Economy With Government Stimulus |
| 2012-08-09 |
| An excerpt Economic growth requires good spending, not more spending. After all, Washington could pay every American $10,000 to dig a hole in his or her neighbor's yard and then another $10,000 to fill it in. It would be a ludicrous policy, yet Keynes argued that the unemployed would be better off if paid by the government to "dig holes in the ground." Most jobs bills are little different than paying people to dig holes. Politics, not economics, dominates. University of Chicago economist Raghuram Rajan admitted "When people say austerity is not the answer, fine, if you have great things to spend on, let us know what they are." The ARRA ignited a lobbying frenzy, turning the measure into a Christmas tree for legislators to hang long desired projects and favored social spending. By one estimate the bill "created" jobs at an average cost of $278,000. The cost of some individual jobs exceeded a million dollars each. Tom Evslin, who coordinated Vermont's federal "stimulus" money, concluded that "much of the money ended up continuing bloated programs rather than providing a transition to a sustainable future." He pointed to broadband and energy programs, where private investment "dried up as companies waited to see if they could build with taxpayer money. Entrepreneurial effort turned from innovation to grant-grabbing." Last September the New York Times reported that critics "say the money has gone to areas where it is not needed, to promote broadband where it already exists and for industrial parks designed to attract business and jobs that may never materialize." RTWT |
| Posted by:Beavis |
| #4 Face it, you are all working for the bankers now, and they are not ever going to take the blame, if it's a blame-game you want. They will wreck your country and the world and then make you pay for the repairs with slave labour. The more people who opt out of their game/system, the less their chances of success. Unfortunately, most are wage slaves not based on a cash economy, so not many options there, apart from demanding to be paid in cash. Fortunately, I am not in that position, so I can hate whatever I like, (bankers, politicians, etc), with not much comeback, but I fear the majority are, how do the English put it, stuffed for at least the next three generations |
| Posted by: Tarzan Spairt4671 2012-08-09 17:48 |
| #3 "Digging holes" In reference to the article which talks about the government providing jobs by having people dig holes and others filling them up. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2012-08-09 15:57 |
| #2 Economic growth requires growth. Growth also requires providing goods or services which someone values (needs or wants) and can afford; to create an added value. Growth requires creating wealth. Digging holes doesn't do it; ultimately government jobs don't do it either. They suck up wealth that is created by the private economy. Over-regulating the private economy with inane regulations also dries up wealth. Money needs to keep circulating, creating wealth for individuals along the way--there has to be some velocity to money. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2012-08-09 15:55 |
| #1 Economic growth requires growth. There will be damn little of that in the next 4 years, regardless of who is elected president in 3 months. The main questions are, who will be blamed for the lack of growth between the election of 2012 and the next one of 2014, and how will the dwindling wealth of the US be re-distributed? Eventually the electorate will figure it out. I'm not holding my breath as to just when they will figure it out. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2012-08-09 15:12 |