I cannot figure out how Americans aren’t getting NOW that the economy is not a zero sum game, and that government spending, especially when targeted away from the rich (though they got a huge cut), who hoard it and toward the working class that spends—can be beneficial to economic health.
I cannot figure out how Americans aren’t getting NOW that the economy is not a zero sum game, and that government spending, especially when targeted away from the rich (though they got a huge cut), who hoard it and toward the working class that spends—can be beneficial to economic health.
We just SAW this happen. The US threw trillions of dollars into the economy—willy nilly!—and European countries did not and now they are anemically trudging along, and we are almost back to economic health (in many aspects, we are entirely back to health).
The entire global economy VIRTUALLY COLLAPSED. We had a total economic contraction on a catastrophic scale.
Did we have lasting, massive unemployment? No. Did we have catastrophic business failures No. Did we have runaway inflation? No, we had inflation that peaked and then declined.
Was everyone’s life ruined? No.
NO. Why? Because of the government stimulus, which happened very quickly, and mostly just involved spreading money around.
The US recovered the fastest of every economy in the developed world. The US had lower inflation rates than other countries. The US bounced back like a mofo after what everyone thought was a lasting, scarring, deep, deep disaster.
We SAW that happen with our own eyes. We saw a startling reduction in childhood poverty in fact!
I don’t know what the upper limit of government spending is —I assume it exists, or some spending does not do this kind of magic to lower unemployment, etc.—but clearly seeing this should be an eye-opener about certain dynamics which make the US economy very, VERY dissimilar to a household budget!
I cannot say what is wrong in economic theory that must be corrected but austerity has been proven to be bunk (over and over, in fact). The public has been fed a load of bullshit about the economy over the years. And we witnessed a very vivid demonstration of that.
I cannot figure out how Americans aren’t getting NOW that the economy is not a zero sum game, and that government spending, especially when targeted away from the rich (though they got a huge cut), who hoard it and toward the working class that spends—can be beneficial to economic health.
We just SAW this happen. The US threw trillions of dollars into the economy—willy nilly!—and European countries did not and now they are anemically trudging along, and we are almost back to economic health (in many aspects, we are entirely back to health).
The entire global economy VIRTUALLY COLLAPSED. We had a total economic contraction on a catastrophic scale.
Did we have lasting, massive unemployment? No. Did we have catastrophic business failures No. Did we have runaway inflation? No, we had inflation that peaked and then declined.
Was everyone’s life ruined? No.
NO. Why? Because of the government stimulus, which happened very quickly, and mostly just involved spreading money around.
The US recovered the fastest of every economy in the developed world. The US had lower inflation rates than other countries. The US bounced back like a mofo after what everyone thought was a lasting, scarring, deep, deep disaster.
We SAW that happen with our own eyes. We saw a startling reduction in childhood poverty in fact!
I don’t know what the upper limit of government spending is —I assume it exists, or some spending does not do this kind of magic to lower unemployment, etc.—but clearly seeing this should be an eye-opener about certain dynamics which make the US economy very, VERY dissimilar to a household budget!
I cannot say what is wrong in economic theory that must be corrected but austerity has been proven to be bunk (over and over, in fact). The public has been fed a load of bullshit about the economy over the years. And we witnessed a very vivid demonstration of that.