"In the long run, in the very long run, Keynes is going to be dead...finally."

via reason.com

He better be.

“The medication is worse than the disease”. Ain’t that the truth. Last night we were force-fed a healthy dose of foulness that promises to rip up our insides as surely as if we had swallowed battery acid. And we weren’t even offered a spoonful of sugar.

If you have 7 and 1/2 minutes, watch Professor McKenzie talk about how and why the stimulus failed (and it has failed kids, make no mistake about it). It’s an easy watch for those of you out there just beginning a journey into the brilliant world of Austrian Economics:

“It’s been a year since Congress passed a stimulus bill that will eventually dole out $787 billion in taxpayer money to lucky recipients across the country.

In California, stimulus money has been used to pay the salaries of cops, provide rental assistance to residents of Santa Monica, and subsidize homeowners who weatherize their homes. Were those good investments?

The University of California at Irvine was awarded $42 million in stimulus money to fund different research projects and, in one case, $2 million to “stimulate student interest in mathematics and computer science.” Was that a good use of scarce public dollars?”

Professor McKenzie reminds us that there is absolutely no reason whatsoever why the United States can’t or won’t wind up like Greece or California. We can, and we will. We are not too big to fail.

Like Andrews tells Ismay after he remarks incredulously that Titanic can’t sink, as the Atlantic Ocean relentlessly breaches each of the bays in the final hours of her maiden voyage:

“I assure you, she can. And she will. It is a mathematical certainty.”

I don’t know if we’ve reached that level of certainty yet or whether we have a firewall strong enough to withstand the last of the ocean’s surge.

But we better start pushing back now…and pushing back hard.

Russ

Posted via web from The Resistance