Krugman: Obama Should Just Lie to Americans to Get Another Stimulus

Paul Krugman, the New York Times’ liberal with no conscience, posted an opinion piece in which he offered a solution to the current economic situation: lie to Americans to get them to buy into another round of massive stimulus spending.

Suppose that Obama announces that we face a clear and present danger from Ruritania, and that to meet that threat we need immediate investment in roads and rail (to move troops, of course). The economy surges on the emergency spending — and newly employed men and women at last get to move out of their relatives’ basements. Home construction surges.

Then Obama apologizes, says that his advisers have learned that there is no such country as Ruritania, and cancels the program. But we still have the new roads and rail links; plus, the surge in housing demand is now self-sustaining, and the economy remains strong.

Obama did enough lying to get the first round of hundreds of billions (or over a trillion depending on how it’s counted) of dollars of government spending. That round did nothing. The bigger problem with this plan is that it intentionally creates yet another bubble. What happens when Obama announces that we built all that for nothing, no war is coming, and that Ruritania is a country that exists only in works of fiction? Those family members will be right back in Mom’s basement in no time. We saw it with the first Obama stimulus, we’ll see it again.

Artificial demand is the bugle call of Keynesian progressives. Create an economy around artificial demand – a bubble. Eventually those bubbles burst (housing is a prime example of Keynesian bubble building and the eventual bust). We need to unleash the free market and give it certainty of opportunity.

Certainty does not come about by deceiving business owners and citizens. Confidence will come when the government backs off of businesses and let’s them do what they do best – invest, hire, build, make money.

Perhaps Krugman and his ilk should stop bashing the wealthy and corporations and instead get out of the way so more of us can join the ranks of the corporate jet owners.