We are spending an unprecedented amount of money to save, or prop up, the financial system of our nation, and thus the potential for financial viability of every household and business. We may do something similar for the Big Three Auto makers, although the advantages of reorganization under bankruptcy may be a better alternative for all of us. Will it work? Who knows? We’ve never been this way before, and comparisons to 1932 have only tangential value. Can we find humor in any of this? I find a bit of dark humor in every evening news broadcast when representatives of the conservative right keep asking, “Where will the money come from?” It amazes me, and I find it darkly humorous, that it was never a question asked as we spent $10 billion a month on a war we should have never started while simultaneously lowering taxes on those most able to pay, and who were not being over taxed in the first place. The answer for both is, of course, deficit spending, and I defy an person on the conservative right to look shocked or utter any condemnation. They got us into this mess through their profligate ways.
The Curmudgeon Offers Profound (and boldly ignorant) Economic Advice
Some years ago an economist named Kendrick said that if you want a healthy, productive economy then work on Education, Public Health, R&D and Infrastructure (taken from my memory of something said 35 years ago). That goes for the use of public funds at the governmental level, and private funds at the corporate level. All other kinds of things such as innovative products and services will be the engines driving the creation of new wealth, but education, public health, R&D and infrastructure are the necessary elements of the conditions under which that can happen. Right now we are working on the financial infrastructure, which has all the structural integrity of the former Minneapolis I 35w bridge. It appears that the incoming administration intends to focus on the rest of it. I hope they have the fortitude to stick to their intentions, and not be driven off by a handful of analysts obsessed with quarterly results.
CP,I have been delving into my past with economics. If you can believe it, rereading Adam Smith, Keynes and Friedman. Anyway, I came across an analysis of Keynesian stimulus. Help comes from big deficit spending during an economic downturn to restore equilibrium at a more desirable level, than doing nothing. Equilibrium would come otherwise, but not where you would desire it. The other side of it is that during good times, the govt. reduces expenditures and saves. I was thinking, this seems to be the opposite of how govt. usually operates, especially-(noise of throat clearing)-Republican administrations.Just a thought, maybe not even a good one.Peace,C+