Stimulus Package to Stimulate Nothing
By Tommy Leung on February 12th, 2009 in Economics, Public Policy
Not that it should be a surprise to anyone who understands politics and economics–they always go hand in hand–but, the stimulus bill being pushed through into law contains many things that may not boost the economy. The only thing we hear about is how we need to act immediately to combat the worsening economy. No politicians talk about how the use of money in the stimulus is actually going to stimulate anything.
I’m under the impression that these politicians have no idea how or even if all this spending is going to “stimulate” the economy. If they were masters of economics, they wouldn’t have to rely on the rest of us to provide them a living. The one thing politicians are good at is taking other people’s money–by force of government–and then spending it recklessly on projects they deem important or necessary.
It is economic fact that central planning does not work and it only makes society poorer. The United States has been the shining light for prosperity because of the freedom of our markets. They have never been truly free but, still freer than most other places.
The idiocy of all the economic policies coming out of Washington is that they are all central planning tactics. We know what works and we know what doesn’t. Why are we constantly trying to use what doesn’t work?
It is more than possible that we need to rebuild some of the infrastructure in this country and that we need to find alternative forms of energy. The question is not if we need it but, does government know better than the rest of us if we need it.
And of course, do you take money from someone in California to build a bridge in Minnesota? The obvious is answer is, no. What all these stimulus bills and government works projects does is exactly that, take money from one person for the benefit of another.
There is nothing wrong with charity however, an attribute of charity is that it is voluntary. If one cannot opt out, it is stealing. It doesn’t matter if you use the barrel of a gun or the force of government. Thievery is thievery.
At best this stimulus package will shuffle money around and by pure luck the end result will be close to the optimal result the free market would have made. At worse, this bill will plunge the American economy into an even greater recession/depression.
No entity or person is capable of making better decisions faster than hundreds of millions of people making decisions with their money several times a day. To believe that you know better than the independent decisions of millions of people is incredibly arrogant to say the least.
Tags: economy, stimulate nothing, stimulus, stimulus package
February 24th, 2009 at 11:37 am
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