Things I Wish I Said
New Deal vs. WWII
But here's the thing. Think about what the New Deal built, and think about what WWII spending built. The New Deal built power lines, dams, bridges, etc. All kinds of stuff we depend on to this day. What did the colossal wartime spending build? Basically things that were all blown up.
It is true that New Deal spending was definitely smaller than war spending for World War II, but that ought to teach us something! And that is this: it apparently doesn't matter if you hire people to build things that you will then just tow out to sea and sink. What matters is the process of hiring them.
This time around, we have the luxury of not having to hire people to build things that blow up, and we can be grateful we don't have to hire them to risk death fighting some evil force bent on world domination. Instead, we can hire them to build another round of modern infrastructure which can provide enormous value to our society for another half-century. ¶ 12:36 AM 0 Comments
Monday, February 9, 2009
One of the main criticisms of the stimulus package being considered right now is that Roosevelt's New Deal project didn't work, only WWII did. (via Yglesias)
But here's the thing. Think about what the New Deal built, and think about what WWII spending built. The New Deal built power lines, dams, bridges, etc. All kinds of stuff we depend on to this day. What did the colossal wartime spending build? Basically things that were all blown up.
It is true that New Deal spending was definitely smaller than war spending for World War II, but that ought to teach us something! And that is this: it apparently doesn't matter if you hire people to build things that you will then just tow out to sea and sink. What matters is the process of hiring them.
This time around, we have the luxury of not having to hire people to build things that blow up, and we can be grateful we don't have to hire them to risk death fighting some evil force bent on world domination. Instead, we can hire them to build another round of modern infrastructure which can provide enormous value to our society for another half-century. ¶ 12:36 AM 0 Comments
