Saturday, October 31, 2009

Government Fiction = Stimulus Success!

Caroline Baum: "When the government distributes lucre or loot, people spend it. If your interest is national income accounting, spending other people’s money is great. Spending is a back-door way for government statisticians to measure what matters, which is the real output of goods and services.

But the government has no money of its own to spend; only what it borrows or confiscates from us via taxation. Oops.

“Government job creation is an oxymoron,” said Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist at the National Federation of Independent Business. It is only by depriving the private sector of funds that government can hire or subsidize hiring.

That’s why “jobs created or saved” is such pure fiction."

Writing at Bloomberg.com, Ms. Baum Has more here!

The nice thing is a media suddenly beginning to give the Obama WH much less than carte blanche....

Duke