Mark Bern

Open Comment to Paul Krugman on the "Stupidity Economy"

Personally, I think even Keynes would be rolling over in his grave if he knew what economic policies were being attributed to him today. Keynes, in my understanding, never thought that continuous deficit spending at unsustainable levels compared to GDP and continuous high trade deficits were a good thing. He advocated that deficit spending, when necessary to pull an economy out of a recession, was an appropriate action. But if he were to see how the stimulus money is being spent on pork projects, even he would go ballistic. That's not what he intended. Keynes wasn't stupid!
Those who call themselves Keynesian today are making a mockery of the poor guy and destroying his legacy.

Having said that, I'm not a Keynesian supporter in the true sense. I lean more toward the Austrian side of the economics field. But, I do believe that, during a deep recession such as the one we are currently experiencing, deficit spending can be good. But not if it is done willy nilly as we are witnessing today. It must be strategic in nature. It must be done with long-term benefits to infrastructure so as to ensure that a nation will be stronger than before. It must create jobs with permanency of nature that will last at least four or five years instead of 90 days to one year. It should not be a stop gap just to get us through the worst. It should contain strategic (that means long-term and beneficial in nature to me) plans to support basic industries and needs of the country such as: an energy policy (not just words and mottos, but a real executable plan that will solve the problems), a national security plan to address our borders and immigration issues and to make our ports and air cargo terminals more secure, an infrastructure plan to modernize our aging (over one hundred years old and rotting badly) water and sewer systems in cities across the country and the bridges that have been declared unsafe or nearly so, an industrial plan to determine which industries will be the most important for future growth and prosperity and how to support growth of such industries and jobs within our own borders.

Have any of these important issues been properly addressed and funded? No. So, where are we headed? No one knows. Why? There is no plan. Our leaders are just throwing our hard-earned money out the windows and hoping for the best. I, for one, don't call that leadership. And it sure as heck would not be supported by Keynes if he were alive today.