Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Two Problems with the Revival of Pump-Priming

...are discussed by a notorious left-wing author in THE NATION. First, experts disagree on how much or even whether it worked before. Second, the problem of the early thirties was simple by comparison. People were broke and often jobless, but they usually weren’t in debt. Thanks to all the bankruptcies, lots of debt was just swept away, and the economy was a kind of tabula rasa. Today people, corporations, and governments are increasingly both broke and have mega-debt. Our author, with one historical piece of evidence, reminds us of the alternative of just allowig bankruptcy to run amok, eradicating all the debt, and starting over. He knows, of course, that the results today would be horrible, and that ain’t going to happen anyway. This article has the merit of reminding us that the bipartisan consensus--which includes lefty and many libertarian economists--on the huge stimulus package is a big-time Hail Mary pass.

Discussions - 1 Comment

As we know from football, the Hail Mary pass rarely works. The Keynesian economic policies of FDR were of dubious worth. There is a good line of argument that they made the Great Depression what it was.

There are so many down sides and so many ways the massive stimulus plan could fail that it looks like a really bad idea to me.

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