re: Barack Obama-san
Today, in the Wall Street Journal opinion section, a piece titled Barack Obama-san argued against widespread economic stimulus/deficit spending. The argument presented was that such “Keynesian ‘pump-priming’” should not be relied upon based upon the failure of similar policies in Japan in the 1990s. Furthermore, the WSJ posits, such investment in “public works are usually less productive than the foregone private investment.”
I am no economist, so I became curious. Why is it that the New Deal seemed to work, but the Japanese policies did not? A quick look on wikipedia (albeit, not necessarily a reliable source, but an accessible one) tends to contradict the logic that the opinion piece would have you believe is incontrovertible. I really hope that there are some economists out there trying to model the New Deal, Japan during the 1990s, and other examples of stimulus spending. I’d like to know the right way to go on this one…any thoughts people?
December 16th, 2008
my guess… nobody has any clue.
December 17th, 2008
honeybees.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/dancing-bees-tt1210.html