The Heritage Foundation - Leadership for America

December 15, 2008 Dave in Dallas writes:

The only way Keynesian spending works is if the government uses money to BUY THINGS, i.e. the things that customers are not buying anymore. Steel, concrete, retail products, all the things that keep businesses in business. Just spending it on ‘the poor’ or ‘bailouts’ does nothing for the businesses that are going to fail because there is no direct compulsive pathway for the money to go INTO the economic food chain.

People hoard it. All it does is devalue the dollar and add to future taxpayer burdens. Businesses STILL go out of business, people STILL lose jobs, even with ‘Obaman’ (Keynesian) spending.

December 16, 2008 duelles, Santa Fe, NM writes:

The gov’t redistirbution stimulus plan may give false hope to the stock market. My hope is that we will see a rebound in the DOW to at least 11,500 so I can get out prior to the complete collapse.
SO pathetic is the understanding of our leaders. I refuse to be a lemming. The dilution of our worth, as Dave points out, will be very costly in the next 3-4 years.

December 16, 2008 W. Bradley, Louisville, KY writes:

The reason why politicians continue to use this approach is because it is an extremely effective way of “buying” votes from those who see themselves as “have nots”.

December 17, 2008 Keynesian Economics Is Wrong writes:

[...] Via The Foundry: [...]

December 19, 2008 W Howard Baker, Bardstown, KY writes:

We are going to use Keynesian economics to go into an INFLATIONARY DEPRESSION. The last western economy that did this was the Weimar Republic and it is currently being done in Mogodishu in Africa. Inflation hits millions of per cent per day and you can’t afford anything even though you have millions or billions of whatever currency the country uses. It takes almost no time at all to have anarchy. It is being foreseen that with Obama’s tax and spend philosophy and with the size of the spending, we will be in the inflationary depression by the end of 2009. The question is, HOW LONG BEFORE ANARCHY WILL PRESUME?

December 19, 2008 L. Mailaender, NYC writes:

A poor video, because it does not address the central question of whether “Keynesianism” can be used during crisis periods, such as we have now in 2008. According to the video, government spending is always a negative influence. So, let’s just set it to zero and be done with it! (Reductio ad absurdum). Obviously, we do need government to ensure a fair, competitive market. No solution was given as to the right level of government spending, nor how to handle a crisis.

Further, monetarism has no proposal besides lowering taxes. Why would that work? It would put money in the hands of people (usually, that’s good!) but during a crisis, they are afraid to spend, and nothing happens. That’s why direct spending, by the government, is a potential solution. Spending on roads, schools, research, which involves employing people, keeping factories open, and building what will be useful to free enterprise in the future.