“Stimulus” Package
Nothing but more false hope and economic illiteracy:
“Perhaps the most disturbing part of this discussion is the failure of so many people to recognize the illusory nature of the Obama tax cuts, which would reduce the immediate tax burden for some Americans by increasing the federal deficit. A switch from tax-financed spending to deficit-financed spending does little to change the existing division of resources between the private and public sector.”
It is complete nonsense to think that you can create value by either 1) taking from some people to give to others or 2) by decreeing value into existence.
In the first case, the nonsense is compounded by the fact that you are taking from those who have been prudent and successful in order to subsidize those who are imprudent or unsuccessful–by the very nature of the fact that the former have capital to spare and the latter are in need of it. This is hardly the way to improve an economy.
In the second case, you are perpetrating the most pernicious fraud. By debasing the money held by the public, you are stealing real wealth from them in a way that “not one man in a million will detect.” Worse yet, this hidden tax will always, predictably, be paid by the poor and the middle class to the wealthy and well-connected. This is not likely the desired outcomes of the left-liberals who are pushing for this stimulus.
This astounding level of economic illiteracy needs to be addressed, and quickly. In economics, we consistently fail to recognize fundamental logical fallacy that we would not tolerate for a second in any other context. If there were an educational crisis in the country (just hypothetically–I know, just stick with me here), we would all be outraged if the president and congress’s solution to this problem were to simply print and distribute more high school diplomas, and then, upon being challenged on this lunacy, they yielded and granted that yes, this is not enough–better make them college degrees!