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Cash for clunkers question for the Keynesians
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2013 Nov 25, 7:50am 7,338 views 50 comments
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Hey, thomaswrong, the 5 Trillion dollars that Bush/Cheney wrongheadedly took over to the M.E. and blew the hell up, to no conceivable benefit of anyone but the parasitic defense industry, isn't on your graph.
When Barack Obama became president, there were 32,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. He escalated to over 100,000 troops, plus contractors. Now 5 years later, there are 47,000 troops in that shithole, in 9 huge bases, and they project out to “2024 and beyondâ€.
But, 2013 was a record year for the Opium crop, so that's going good.
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When the economy collapsed, we obviously propped up the auto sector as best we could. It has become the received wisdom that C4C was a failure, largely due to pulling sales from future months.
In the Keynesian sense, wouldn't it be a success though? The cash that was "saved" could be spent on other goods or services (almost BECAUSE the recipients might not have needed it but had the ability to spend). Mainly though, it would have served as a kickstart to consumption. Wouldn't an extra 3 billion used directly to spur citizens to spending be a good thing, regardless of whether or not autos were helped by that program?
The 3 billion didn't just disappear. That might not seem "fair" but in terms of economics I can't see how it would not be right on target.