I have posted several blogs in which I stated that the stimulus promoted by President Obama was too small and that another was necessary. I backed up my suggestion with data indicating that President Roosevelt's stimulus, i.e., the New Deal, was working until he tried to balance the budget in 1937.
I believe I was right in advocating a stimulus to promote jobs under the economic conditions of the past, but as far as the current situation is concerned, I am beginning to think I was wrong! The economy is vastly different from the one that prevailed during the Great Depression.
It is true that a stimulus in the form of government spending on projects for which the government is most efficient, i.e., providing a single service for many customers, will provide a limited number of jobs. Society does not need competing armies, courts and legal systems, police forces, power grids, government buildings or interstate highways. These are tailor-made for government control.
But I am afraid that stimuli extended to suppliers of products and services most efficiently performed by the free market, i.e., those provided by many suppliers to many customers, will indeed create many jobs – in China, India, Peru and other emerging nations! Production jobs which cannot be outsourced will be performed by automated and computerized equipment.
But I know I am right about one thing: endless arguing about the pros and cons of insurance-provided contraception won't solve the problem. It's like arguing where to go for dinner while the house is burning down around us.
I believe I was right in advocating a stimulus to promote jobs under the economic conditions of the past, but as far as the current situation is concerned, I am beginning to think I was wrong! The economy is vastly different from the one that prevailed during the Great Depression.
It is true that a stimulus in the form of government spending on projects for which the government is most efficient, i.e., providing a single service for many customers, will provide a limited number of jobs. Society does not need competing armies, courts and legal systems, police forces, power grids, government buildings or interstate highways. These are tailor-made for government control.
But I am afraid that stimuli extended to suppliers of products and services most efficiently performed by the free market, i.e., those provided by many suppliers to many customers, will indeed create many jobs – in China, India, Peru and other emerging nations! Production jobs which cannot be outsourced will be performed by automated and computerized equipment.
But I know I am right about one thing: endless arguing about the pros and cons of insurance-provided contraception won't solve the problem. It's like arguing where to go for dinner while the house is burning down around us.
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My books, “There Are Only Seven Jokes” and “The Spirit Runs Through It” are available in paperback, or at the Kindle Store.
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