It's Time to Stop the Economic Gloom and Doom 36 comments
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Samuel Brittan:
The problem with all this economic doom and gloom, by Samuel Brittan, Commentary, Financial Times: ...I cannot claim to have foreseen the financial blow-out. But I did warn in my column of February 1 2008 of the danger of talking ourselves into a depression... President Franklin Roosevelt put it more elegantly when he said: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
The most alarming feature at present is the fatalistic public mood. ... All the popular talk is of retrenchment, cutting down and spartan savings of all kinds. It should not take a genius to appreciate that such activities can only make the situation worse and aggravate a downward vicious spiral. I would be the last to argue that people should spend recklessly for patriotic reasons, but nor should they stint themselves.
A slump is a tragedy for those who lose their jobs and also for those who fear to lose them. But it is also a logical absurdity that there should exist unsatisfied wants side by side with idle workers willing to supply them. The natural condition of mankind is one of scarcity, and conflicts are often about the allocation of scarce resources. You cannot usually have endless amounts of both guns and butter. ...
But in a slump the rule of these copybook maxims is temporarily suspended. You can have more of A without sacrificing B. You can have environmental investment without sacrificing consumer satisfaction. Indeed the slump arises because not enough is being spent. We are in a kind of parallel universe familiar to cosmologists, when the normal rules are turned upside down and the traditional prudential warnings no longer apply. ...
For what it is worth, policymaking is essentially more straightforward than it was a little while ago. Of course there are problems about the exact means by which purchasing power should be stimulated and about the relationship between fiscal and monetary weapons. But these are second-order compared with the dilemma that previously existed between fighting recession, which called for expansionary measures, and rising inflation, triggered off by explosive increases in oil and commodity prices, which called for restrictive measures. Inflation has now turned down with a vengeance...
One of the main objections to what I am saying is the size of debts governments accumulate in anti-depression spending. ... It is an exaggeration to say in a single country, as the early Keynesians did, “we owe it to ourselves”, but it is still true of the industrial world as a whole. Thus Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, is right to argue for a multilateral approach.
A different kind of objection is that recessions are said to have a purpose. They accelerate the destruction of misplaced activities and overspeculative investment. It is what the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter called “creative destruction”. Yes, up to a point. But this does not justify the secondary and tertiary destruction of perfectly viable activities because purchasing power has fallen... Indeed Schumpeter himself ... suddenly panicked in the 1930s depression and urged a very large fiscal stimulus. Friedrich Hayek, who was a different kind of Austrian, distinguished in his remarks in the 1970s between inevitable recessions and a “secondary depression” caused by a cumulative loss of purchasing power throughout the economy. But there is no evidence that he made this distinction in the 1930s when he taught at the London School of Economics and was one of Keynes’s principal opponents.
There will be a time to return to the copybook virtues. But it is not yet. As the writer of Ecclesiastes put it:
“To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heavens.”
It is hard to get people who are used to thinking about tradeoffs and opportunity costs to realize that when there are idle workers, idle financial capital, and unmet needs, putting these resources to work meeting those needs does not sacrifice other objectives, it enhances them.
But let me turn to something else. In a recession or depression, measured GDP can overstate the fall in the actual output of goods and services if idle workers use the time to make needed repairs or other activities at home, i.e. they engage in household production that, because it does not pass through organized markets, is not counted in GDP statistics. Some people may sit around doing nothing much besides watching sports on TV, the consumption of advertising dollars may very well be their highest utility choice, but others may paint the bedrooms, fix the cracks in the driveway, build a deck in the backyard, etc., etc. To the extent that people take advantage of idle work time to get other things done, the fall in actual output of goods and services is smaller than the measured fall.
And there is nothing that stops the idle workers from getting together as a group and meeting community needs. They could build a playground at a school, pick up litter, build a homeless shelter, and so on. And, similarly, there is nothing that stops groups of individuals from getting together and completing private projects; a group might build the deck at one house, then move on to do something at the house of another member of the group.
Nothing to stop them, that is, except the funds to do these things - decks cost money and the person is unemployed - and the inherent coordination problem involved in such projects. How do you bring the groups of people together and get them working on the highest value projects in either the private or the public sectors?
That is where the government comes in. It serves two roles here, one is to provide the funding (and also, by offering wages, giving people the incentive to do the work instead of watching sports), but it is also important for the government to coordinate activity as well, to bring people together to work on the highest value projects in the community in whatever sector - public or private- those projects might be in. The coordination role is important and often overlooked in these discussions, recessions and depressions are times when the normal coordinating factors such as price signals break down, and public goods won't be provided by the private sector in any case. It isn't completely overlooked of course - it's part of what people mean when they argue that government needs to be careful in selecting the projects that will be pursued with public money - but that discussion is generally stated in efficiency terms rather than as a need to coordinate idle resources into productive activity of some sort.
Keynesians also note that even if the government spending has zero value initially, e.g. paying half the idle workers to dig ditches, and the other half to follow behind and fill the ditches in again, as those workers spend their new income in the community it will generate productive private sector activity. Thus, even if the initial projects are of little or no value, it can still be the case that we are better off having the government intervene than we would be if we did nothing at all. The government should do everything that it can to pursue the highest value projects, but the fact that there may be some waste in the process does not, in and of itself, mean that we'd be better off leaving those resources completely idle and doing nothing at all.
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This article has 36 comments:
Since I live in a country where we tend to find a way between capitalism and communism, I fully agree with the article, it has a good spread. Our histroy has proven that you need to find a middle way between two extremes.
Due to the system we have here we are not panicking so much, since the 5-10 % which will get unemployed, will be caught by the rest. This is not in the sense of US capitalism, but currently nodody knows who is going to be laid of, so it is a win-win situation. You spend it for the army, we for the unemployed, so lets discuss which system makes more sense.
Against all opponents - unemployment is nothing that you just do for fun and have a good time, it supplies you with only the basic needs, and surely everybody want to get out of it ASAP.
We are very fond of Obama, and we think the investments he will be doing for society is not wasted money. Schools, roads, infrastructure and further investment are for the general benefit, and should have been done way back.
Vienna is very close to the former cummunist states, and for one thing I can tell you, these people may not have as much as you, but they are nice, kind and modest people. I have been to the states often, and here is something for corporate US,
GREED KILLS
The most alarming feature at present is the fatalistic public mood.
And with Keynesians that it can still be the case that we are better off having the government intervene than we would be if we did nothing at all.
This was the huge mistake of the Hoover days, when they did absolutely nothing... and the country had to wait until March for FDR.
Thankfully we have Keynesian policy happening as we write and we have Barack and company engaged and ready to sprint out of the gate later this month....
GNE
goodnewseconomist.com
(no gloom and doom here)
when i was younger i believed this. but i have now seen the destruction which accompanies misdirected efforts. if you are not sure what is right to do (unless it is a life or death situation) - do nothing.
we have several distinct economic problems in america. stimulus to be effective needs proper timing. stimulus is a catalyst. there is a distinction between stimulus and gdp filling. gdp filling is what is going on. gdp filling did not work in the great depression to kick start the economy.
why would you do gdp filling if the economy was supposed to ignite this year?
I suppose cause we don't know if it will ignite. Analysts where telling us beginning of last year that everything will move upwards steadily, and now they are telling us it will crash, and some that it will ignite blablablabla.
As to an article some days ago, it is not about risc, but about uncertainty.
Don't take the risc !! You invest in arms easily - so invest in this.
I mentioned before, if you look at the single greatest stimulus of economic success of any country it has always been education. The countries that spend a disproportional amount of money on it relative to their GDP will always be better off 20 years down the line than others who didn't. Thus, I would put this as the most valuable good and service a government can and should make.
So why don't countries do it. Well the biggest reason is stupidity. Then there is the issue that dictators, warlords, etc. are often more interested in retaining power than economic success. This posibly may be derived from the first mentioned reason of stupidity.
You can tell if your country is in camp smart or camp stupid and power hungry just by this simple metric. Sadly, under Bush this percent of GDP to education dropped precipitously. So the real question is why. Was he a) power hungry, b) stupid, c) or both of the above?
I know my answer...
lack of faith in our government and correption help keep
.
This says it all.
Comrades, government's role in society is to regulate trade and insure the national defense.
The minute you intermingle Marxist idealism with Keynesian fantasies you end up with the disaster which we are on the precipice of now. If you enjoy the Chinese Communist economic model you will continue to support Keynesian idiocy. The facts are that by allowing the government to manage, influence or own capital creation via proxy (TARP anyone?) you have diluted competition and any reason for private capital to expand in the future. Depressions and recessions serve useful purposes to let the dying die and the weak be either acquired or put up against the wall. These companies need to go away but the level of interference thus far along with the prospects of massive socialist inspired government programs will only extend the downturn and keep any return to sustained growth delayed by years.
When deleveraging is allowed to occur within a normal free market system, the pain is sharp but the duration short. Unfortunately there is this "mommy mommy I scraped my knee please kiss it and make it better" mentality in this country where losing is no longer an acceptable option. There are winners and losers in real capitalist economies and since we are no longer willing to accept losers, we are well on our way to following the ChiCom-Soviet hybrid model which will mire this nation in mediocrity and guarantee that the Fed and Treasury along with the new administration will introduce a GOSPLAN to satisfy all parties instead of letting markets do what they do best.
On Jan 02 03:51 AM Vienna wrote:
> Interesting to hear two people of my country Austria being quoted
> (Schumpeter and Hayek).
>
> Since I live in a country where we tend to find a way between capitalism
> and communism, I fully agree with the article, it has a good spread.
> Our histroy has proven that you need to find a middle way between
> two extremes.
>
> Due to the system we have here we are not panicking so much, since
> the 5-10 % which will get unemployed, will be caught by the rest.
> This is not in the sense of US capitalism, but currently nodody knows
> who is going to be laid of, so it is a win-win situation. You spend
> it for the army, we for the unemployed, so lets discuss which system
> makes more sense.
>
> Against all opponents - unemployment is nothing that you just do
> for fun and have a good time, it supplies you with only the basic
> needs, and surely everybody want to get out of it ASAP.
>
> We are very fond of Obama, and we think the investments he will be
> doing for society is not wasted money. Schools, roads, infrastructure
> and further investment are for the general benefit, and should have
> been done way back.
>
> Vienna is very close to the former cummunist states, and for one
> thing I can tell you, these people may not have as much as you, but
> they are nice, kind and modest people. I have been to the states
> often, and here is something for corporate US,
>
> GREED KILLS
Perhaps you should take a road trip to Albania. Ask them how the Soviet economic model worked for them.
You'll find that freedom and Keynesian idealism along with government central economic planning are antithetical.
The building of roads and bridges are unsustainable operations, as it does nothing to increase sustainable tax revenues, created by small business.
The building of roads and bridges are unsustainable operations, as it does nothing to increase sustainable tax revenues, created by small business.
"When deleveraging is allowed to occur within a normal free market system, the pain is sharp but the duration short. Unfortunately there is this "mommy mommy I scraped my knee please kiss it and make it better" mentality in this country where losing is no longer an acceptable option. There are winners and losers in real capitalist economies and since we are no longer willing to accept losers..."
While I am sympathetic to Mr. Thoma's observation that there must be something wrong with a system where unmet wants live side by side with idle capital and labor, I agree with johngaltfla that the collectivist cure causes more problems than it solves.
From a broad philosophical perspective I believe that suffering is supposed to motivate us to get off our butts and think up a way to cure our own suffering. This means searching our own mind to discover why we are stuck in the pit we are in, then dumping wrong ideas that keep us in the pit and exercising our creative intelligence to replace bad beliefs with better ones. We are goaded into developing ourselves personally and in Darwinian terms making ourselves more fit for survival.
Big Nanny State wants to eliminate the pain from this equation. Should a parent insulate his/her child from all suffering? Or do we let kids suffer just enough to "learn the lesson" and change their wrong ideas and behavior?
When I was a young parent I correctly predicted the outcome of other parents who over-insulated their children: they got permanent dependents instead of kids who learned how to make their own way in this world.
For selfish personal reasons some parents want to keep their kids permanently needy and close at hand but what happens to your dependents when you die? You haven't let them learn the life skills they need to make it on their own so unless you left them a huge inheritance they're screwed when the source of their support is gone.
Politicians love being Santa Claus and keeping voters in a state of permanent dependence to ensure a large block of support. As George Bernard Shaw put it, "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can count on the support of Paul."
Peter is the businesses and individuals in the productive economy who have to supply all the goods and services the government gives away. A society that systematically robs its productive class discourages production and encourages neediness. Leadership "works". You get more of what you encourage and less of what you discourage. Over time the whole system is producing less for everyone, as the Soviet system demonstrated.
There are probably limits to this downward spiral of productivity. The John Galts of Atlas Shrugged fame will never let themselves become needy as long as they have breath. But there is no mystical capitalist valley to go live in so the John Galts continue producing and paying taxes.
My point is you get what you pay for. If you pay people to be needy you get neediness. If you pay people to be productive you get productive people. If you pay people to speculate on financial products you get speculation replacing economic investment. So the question is, how productively diminished do we have to "collectively" become before this whole getting something for nothing system collapses?
On Jan 02 04:30 AM The hand wrote:
> "Thus, even if the initial projects are of little or no value, it
> can still be the case that we are better off having the government
> intervene than we would be if we did nothing at all."
>
> when i was younger i believed this. but i have now seen the destruction
> which accompanies misdirected efforts. if you are not sure what is
> right to do (unless it is a life or death situation) - do nothing.
>
>
> we have several distinct economic problems in america. stimulus to
> be effective needs proper timing. stimulus is a catalyst. there is
> a distinction between stimulus and gdp filling. gdp filling is what
> is going on. gdp filling did not work in the great depression to
> kick start the economy.
>
> why would you do gdp filling if the economy was supposed to ignite
> this year?
>
>
>
>
On Jan 02 11:08 AM derryl wrote:
> johngaltfla wrote,
>
> "When deleveraging is allowed to occur within a normal free market
> system, the pain is sharp but the duration short. Unfortunately there
> is this "mommy mommy I scraped my knee please kiss it and make it
> better" mentality in this country where losing is no longer an acceptable
> option. There are winners and losers in real capitalist economies
> and since we are no longer willing to accept losers..."
>
> While I am sympathetic to Mr. Thoma's observation that there must
> be something wrong with a system where unmet wants live side by side
> with idle capital and labor, I agree with johngaltfla that the collectivist
> cure causes more problems than it solves.
>
> From a broad philosophical perspective I believe that suffering is
> supposed to motivate us to get off our butts and think up a way to
> cure our own suffering. This means searching our own mind to discover
> why we are stuck in the pit we are in, then dumping wrong ideas that
> keep us in the pit and exercising our creative intelligence to replace
> bad beliefs with better ones. We are goaded into developing ourselves
> personally and in Darwinian terms making ourselves more fit for survival.
>
>
> Big Nanny State wants to eliminate the pain from this equation. Should
> a parent insulate his/her child from all suffering? Or do we let
> kids suffer just enough to "learn the lesson" and change their wrong
> ideas and behavior?
>
> When I was a young parent I correctly predicted the outcome of other
> parents who over-insulated their children: they got permanent dependents
> instead of kids who learned how to make their own way in this world.
>
>
> For selfish personal reasons some parents want to keep their kids
> permanently needy and close at hand but what happens to your dependents
> when you die? You haven't let them learn the life skills they need
> to make it on their own so unless you left them a huge inheritance
> they're screwed when the source of their support is gone.
>
> Politicians love being Santa Claus and keeping voters in a state
> of permanent dependence to ensure a large block of support. As George
> Bernard Shaw put it, "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can
> count on the support of Paul."
>
> Peter is the businesses and individuals in the productive economy
> who have to supply all the goods and services the government gives
> away. A society that systematically robs its productive class discourages
> production and encourages neediness. Leadership "works". You get
> more of what you encourage and less of what you discourage. Over
> time the whole system is producing less for everyone, as the Soviet
> system demonstrated.
>
> There are probably limits to this downward spiral of productivity.
> The John Galts of Atlas Shrugged fame will never let themselves become
> needy as long as they have breath. But there is no mystical capitalist
> valley to go live in so the John Galts continue producing and paying
> taxes.
>
> My point is you get what you pay for. If you pay people to be needy
> you get neediness. If you pay people to be productive you get productive
> people. If you pay people to speculate on financial products you
> get speculation replacing economic investment. So the question is,
> how productively diminished do we have to "collectively&...
> become before this whole getting something for nothing system collapses?
Kill the IRS, pass a balanced budget amendment, and impose term limits...and we have solved the bulk of the problem.
Start here: fairtax.org
"How Discredited "Something For Nothing" Ideas Become Policy
1) Those with money control policies in Congress. In return for sponsoring policies that make no economic sense, corporations pour massive amounts of money into campaign coffers of those who will support whatever legislation the corporations want. The first thing corporations want is government sponsorship at taxpayer expense. The last thing corporations want is a free market.
2) Inflation (expansion of money and credit) is a stealth tax (theft), demolishing the middle class over time. Inflation allows government to collect more every year in property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, etc., typically to pay for war mongering and social redistribution activities sponsored by the corporations that benefit from war mongering and social redistribution activities. The expansion of credit scheme "works" until it all blows up in deflationary bust every few generations.
3) Academia is a breeding ground for socialists. I discussed this aspect at length in Fiscal Insanity Virus Rapidly Spreading The Globe (Part 1) and Fiscal Insanity Virus Rapidly Spreading The Globe (Part 2). Academia likes to promote socialism and blame the free market for failures caused by excessive regulation.
4) People want to believe someone is in control. Even though it is crystal clear that the Fed is a huge part or the problem, people want to believe the Fed is in control. It is very discomforting to think the Fed has no idea what it is doing, so people simply refuse to accept the fact that the Fed has no idea what it is doing.
5) People want to trust the experts even though the experts screw them time and time again. The same thing exists in the stock market. People want to believe stocks will go up so they believe anyone who tells them stocks will go up.
6) There is an overwhelming propensity by everyone to seek something for nothing. People will listen to and vote for anyone promising something for nothing. Economic professors and members of Congress are both particularly adept at promoting something for nothing."
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
globaleconomicanalysis...
At this point, my main concern is making sure that governments fail in their efforts to avoid taking the blame for this mess.
Your essay skills are at a pinnacle in the comment you wrote. I can think of nothing to add. Congratulations.
Bush41= Guns and Cream
Clinton = Guns, Butter and Cream
Bush43 = Guns, More Guns and Cream
Obama = Guns, More Guns, More More Guns, Hold the Butter and No More Cream
what about all the people on welfare and those with the ninja loans, have they fixed up their homes?? what have they done with their spare time ? probably not sprucing up the 'hood', I bet.
Americans have elected a community organizer as president, so perhaps we won't need a gruppenfurher on every block.
My friend, everything the govm'nt does involves huge waste. For example, the just finished washington DC visitors center started out at a budget of about 70 million and ended up 10 times that amount when finished.
In hindsite, would it have been better for the Govm'nt not to have managed the mortgage market via Fannie and Freddie or not?
This may be true in the short term, but it is unsustainable for the government to pay out more value than is created. Both make-work and worthwhile projects can only be funded with money printing or borrowing (which are the same thing). Inflation is the result of too much "stimulus" carried on for too long. In fact, the government has only so many dollars it can spend before that spending itself creates the risk of an Argentina or Russia-style currency devaluation and currency flight. The exact location of that tipping point cannot be known before the disaster. It depends on investors' opinion of the government's legitimacy, solvency, stability, and intentions.
Thus our ammo is limited, not infinite. We have one, maybe two, chances to get this right or we suffer the same fates as the Argentines, Icelanders, and Russians. Can we afford to dig and refill ditches? I think not. There is plenty of real work to be done. We have to invest in things that provide a return on investment.
If I were authoring the next stimulus bill, I would focus on bottom-up investments that would create value and fuel future growth:
1) Energy independence: Build European-style light rail, clean up the inner cities and provide incentives for redevelopment, provide funding for wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, etc. energy. Get off oil, which has crushed our economy enough times already.
2) Education: Provide grants so that thousands of unemployed people can study medicine, nursing, business, computer science, engineering, and basic science. Help single moms and poor kids break the cycle of poverty by helping them fill the skills gap in our workforce.
3) Disaster preparedness: Reinforce levees, buildings, and bridges to prevent future losses and lower insurance costs.
4) Basic science: We desperately need new technologies to provide us with the energy, medical, security, and economic solutions of the 21st century. The price for falling behind is high. It's time to fund needed research.
5) Addiction treatment: We have millions of people in this country who have been deprived of their freedom by addiction, and who are committing crimes and providing financial support for terrorists and criminals. With the exception of a small handful of non-profits, these people have no way to obtain assistance with recovery, even if they want it. Each addict that is changed from being a burden to society to being a contributor saves hundreds of thousands of dollars. ROI occurs within a couple of years.
produced no real growth and each scheme means that hand has been exhausted.
We'll see, maybe alternative energy or some resource brings new growth to this country...other than that we die a slow death over 20-30 years.
Look around areas of this country: timber, steel, manufacturing, oil, autos dead...yea, we have tech, military, medical, financial services...is that enough for continued growth?...do we really have core resources other than farming?..
water and energy are key to the growth of society....or are wars in the
pipeline as dwindling oil later re-appears in the headlines?... peak oil will
be back with a vengeance and cites are headed for major water problems.
Hurricanes, fires and freak weather is becoming the norm...very costly..
I see no catalyst "yet" to point the way...hopefully alternative energy say
10-12 years out will do it.
On Jan 02 09:31 AM Kingnukem wrote:
> Vienna... let's talk about how best to spend money. You note that
> you spend it on unemployment and the Americans spend it on the army.
> True. But why do you think you have the opportunity to skimp on the
> military? Perhaps because Uncle Sam is carrying your burden? Back
> in the '50s when the Soviets withdrew from Austria, do you think
> it happened because of Austrian might, or American pressure? How
> about the fall of the Soviet Empire - was that due to Austrian unemployment
> benefits or American strength? So, it appears that you are more than
> happy to freeload on the Uncle's back. This works until Uncle says
> "no more" - and I think that time is coming. Get ready.
More jingoistic American't exceptionalism! Take your own advice and get ready!
On Jan 02 09:31 AM Kingnukem wrote:
> Vienna... let's talk about how best to spend money. You note that
> you spend it on unemployment and the Americans spend it on the army.
> True. But why do you think you have the opportunity to skimp on the
> military? Perhaps because Uncle Sam is carrying your burden? Back
> in the '50s when the Soviets withdrew from Austria, do you think
> it happened because of Austrian might, or American pressure? How
> about the fall of the Soviet Empire - was that due to Austrian unemployment
> benefits or American strength? So, it appears that you are more than
> happy to freeload on the Uncle's back. This works until Uncle says
> "no more" - and I think that time is coming. Get ready.
Thanks for pointing out the sustainability issues inherent in stimulus packages. The whole of Keynes' idea regarding "paying one group to dig ditches and then paying another group to fill them in again" as a way to reinvigorate an economy seems like, and is, a something-from-nothing free lunch. It might provide a way to temporarily reinflate a bubble, but why would we want to do that at all? The bubble is the problem, not the solution.
It seems to me that a steady stream of productivity enhancements and population growth are needed to keep an economy growing. Is it possible that Western economies are suffering in large part from demographics, and that that is one of Japan's major problems? It was obvious that US politicians turned a blind eye to illegal immigration in the US, and I always believed that they did so because they knew the economy needed population growth and Americans were satisfied with ZPG birth rates. The Futurist Magazine predicts women will want more sex in 2009, so the solution is on the way.
Shedlock and others make an excellent case for the difficulties we'll encounter reigniting credit growth. Frankly, Americans are maxed out credit-wise. All I see is a wall of money being created and thrown at the problem, along with a massive PR campaign which brings us articles like this one. I expect the wall of money and the PR campaign both to continue to grow until something happens, either reinflation or currency destruction. You mention Argentina which is an interesting case as their collapse occurred a few years ago and so we can see what a currency collapse looks like after a few years; it ain't pretty.
I fear there is some mathematical reality in play which isn't understood (certainly not by Keynesians) that is going to force a future lifestyle payback for all the future consumption we pulled into the present with borrowing. I don't think that any "stimulus" package is going to do anything other than make people feel like "the people in charge" are doing something about the economy. The fact is they're just going to make it worse. Central bankers and politicians will act like they can do something and that will allow them to fool the public and stay in charge.
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The problem is that to comment incisively about the Real World, you really have to have experienced it first hand. Most commentators are too privileged and detached to do this.
On Jan 02 08:45 PM sickofthehype wrote:
> AWESOME. Well said my friend.
>
>
> On Jan 02 09:31 AM Kingnukem wrote:
On Jan 02 09:31 AM Kingnukem wrote:
> Vienna... let's talk about how best to spend money. You note that
> you spend it on unemployment and the Americans spend it on the army.
> True. But why do you think you have the opportunity to skimp on the
> military? Perhaps because Uncle Sam is carrying your burden? Back
> in the '50s when the Soviets withdrew from Austria, do you think
> it happened because of Austrian might, or American pressure? How
> about the fall of the Soviet Empire - was that due to Austrian unemployment
> benefits or American strength? So, it appears that you are more than
> happy to freeload on the Uncle's back. This works until Uncle says
> "no more" - and I think that time is coming. Get ready.
On Jan 02 01:39 PM John Lounsbury wrote:
> derryl - - -
>
> Your essay skills are at a pinnacle in the comment you wrote. I can
> think of nothing to add. Congratulations.
Infrastructure is not free and without it there would be not tax revenue. How much time do you waste sitting in traffic because there is not public transport or adequate roads?
On Jan 02 10:26 AM YBUL wrote:
> <<We never have had a true Keynesian Economics, unless that model
> is spend or spend more. >>
>
> The building of roads and bridges are unsustainable operations, as
> it does nothing to increase sustainable tax revenues, created by
> small business.
>
>
For a recovery to be true and long-term, investment must be made into new technologies, energy independence (and sustainability), public transport systems, industry that is based in USA rather than China or India...we can't all just juggle money endlessly and expect to get paid for doing that alone and not actually producing anything.