Weaponized Keynesianism - Paul Krugman

[Christa]

A great line from Barney Frank, about Republicans trying to preserve funding for the F-22:

These arguments will come from the very people who denied that the economic recovery plan created any jobs. We have a very odd economic philosophy in Washington: It’s called weaponized Keynesianism. It is the view that the government does not create jobs when it funds the building of bridges or important research or retrains workers, but when it builds airplanes that are never going to be used in combat, that is of course economic salvation.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/weaponized-keynesianism/

[kenny blankenship]

1. There's another name for this kind of spending of course: It's a "Nationalist" program

in the service of a foreign policy of My Country Over All The Others.

Aaaaand it's "Socialist", too, in the service of a centrally directed economic policy that looks to the military for employment, GNP growth (capital spending) and access to foreign markets and materials.

Now put them together. See what you've got. That's right: Miltarized Keynsianism is nothing new. And it always leads to bad things.

Keynsianism - fine. Socialism -fine. However, Militarist Keynsianism = National Socialism and a country that heads down that path is on a collision course with the rest of the world. You convert your economy to a WEAPONS based economy and you will sooner or later find yourself locked into wars for empire, and for the materials that make empire possible.

BTW: By the time Ronnie Reagan, the great believer in limited govt. and the "free market" left office, the Federal Government was spending TWENTY NINE CENTS OUT OF EVERY DOLLAR of GDP. In the early 90s, at least one propeller head on the Reagan Council of Economic Advisers was touting the defense build-up under Reagan as the catalyst for the economic expansion during the 1980s.

[ColbertWatcher]

2. Great find. k+r.

I made a page for it on the Truthiness Encyclopedia: http://www.wikiality.com/Weaponized_Keynesianism

Thank you, now I won't lose it!

[PM Martin]

3. Strange how that works.

[wryter2000]

4. Darn

I thought it would mean we could use Keynesianism as a biological weapon to spread over Washington to cure them all of their Laffer-virus. :)