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Notes to myself, possibly of interest to others.
-- Bill Northlich

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Another comment on government spending

When--in conditions in which there are masses of unemployed--the government spends money to hire people who were previously among the involuntarily unemployed, their productivity increases. It goes from zero to whatever the value of what the government hires them to do is. This increases income and demand, all in tandem.

---Brad DeLong, 2/23

3 comments:

  1. Hurrah! Let's give all the unemployed a giv-mint job.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Na... fuck 'em. Send 'em back to Africa/Afghanistan/Mexico/Detroit.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alternatively, "unemployment benefits are a good, quick, administratively easy way to increase demand, which is what we really need. So right now they have the effect of reducing unemployment."

    --- The evil, and obviously stupid Krugman,
    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/supply-demand-and-unemployment/

    ReplyDelete