stimulus

Well, several weeks into the Obama administration has come down to the question of what is proper stimulus? I have an answer...do nothing. To all of my free-market friends, here would be the best chance to see you pure market-forces at work. There are tons of jobs that need to be done in America and there's a demand for such to be done (even if contracted by the government). From falling bridges to the needed creation of a 'green' economy. Since the private sector always does things better than government and well, here's their chance to invest and making a killing in the future. They have the means, and should, have the incentive to do such.

There's a problem though, they do not want to risk the investment. They are holding their money, just as normal Americans are, in case the current economic problems get worse. This is the problem with this utopian, narrow-minded view of capitalism and the markets that make it up. The assumption that government is always the boggy man and that private industry is always the victim. The truth this time around, is more close to a role reversal. Since, private industry won't invest in things that people need and people want, the government in the name of stimulating the economy, has to do such investment.

What a dangerous precedent. That the government is going to do something that private industry won't dare touch (sarcasm). We should be fearful of the socialists and commis.

No wait, this happens all the time. Schools, scientific research, hospitals, etc. -- there are various things that have high demand for a service, but no business (at least in most cases) would dare invest in such a venture. There is a role for government, more overarching than just an over-blown military and the building of more Nucs. Sometimes the government has to help business, say in building sports stadiums, and some times government is the itself business, say in water treatment plants.

We don't live in a perfect world, no need believing we do. Sometimes they're exceptions to rules that indeed threaten the theories that underlie the greatest of this country. But when such exceptions are done to protect the America people, and in this case, the world...theories conceived in other more idealistic times should be a secondary thought.

If you want stimulus (according to the free markets experts of late) give incentives to banks to lend again to spur investment and people to spend again. Rationale: Our economy is not built on production anymore, but consumption and innovation. Problem: If both are stimulated, at least for the short run, we might have the ability to run 'this track' and if we are lucky sometime much later in the future be back in the same spot were in now (rather than facing that fate now). That time being when people run out of 'stimulating' money or the banks are not liquid anymore and again stop lending.

Instead, if we want to get out of this cycle for the foreseeable future, I say build up America (like Iraq and all the other nation building we have been doing lately) and develop the green economy. This will provide long lasting jobs, economic stimulation, and a better America paid and done by the government. What a terrible proposition, the government doing something that will benefit the people. Sometimes I think that my more conservatively minded friends want to see the government fail to more factually justify their philosophy.

As the story goes, you can give a man a fish and he eats for a day[crisis], but if you teach him how to fish...