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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (748443)	10/21/2013 8:46:45 PM
From: SilentZ	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 1573213

>In the case of the ObamaCare web sites, let's say it should have taken $200M to develop, test, and deploy with few to no bugs, but in actuality it took $1.2B. It was supposed to cost $90 mil and cost a bit upwards of $200 mil. >Keynesians will claim that the difference of $1B represents a "stimulative" effect on the GDP because it circulates money that would have otherwise not been spent. But what did that extra $1B buy us? Nothing. And did that extra $1B just magically appear out of thin air? Of course not. Actually, I'd never say that. At least for America. We paid a Canadian company to do that. I'd be much less into Keynesian-style spending if we didn't actually have needs -- but we do have plenty of infrastructure needs, and a lot of people to help. Yes, Keynes did say that it can be stimulative to pay one guy to dig a hole, and then another one to fill it. But that's pure theory. I haven't seen anyone advocate paying for busy work. -Z

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (748443)	10/22/2013 8:01:33 AM
From: RetiredNow	2 Recommendations Recommended By Tenchusatsu TideGlider Respond to of 1573213

Exactly, but there is also something more pernicious going on here. In economic history, it is a fact that private enterprise will always, over the long run, allocate capital in a way that maximizes the reward to risk ratio projects and economic growth. The government has no incentive to do that and always ends up spending far too much and getting far too little benefit for their expenditures. Not only that, but they must marshall the vast police power of the government to enforce an economic regime in which 50% of the population does not want to participate. This means a lurch towards less Freedom and more of a police state. This is the thing most Americans think can't happen here and they'd be wrong. An Entitlement society leads to loss of Freedom and eventually a Dictatorship, Fascism, or Oligarchy. History is clear on these things and the Austrian school of economics will point this out. The Keynesians live in a world where there are no consequences for profligacy and monetary debasement. Quite simply, this is an irresponsible economic policy and Keynesianism was already debunked multiple times in economic history, but somehow once again with under-educated Americans' full throated support, it has risen again in the US.