Re;[lbo-talk] The real thing?

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri Aug 1 11:03:31 PDT 2003


Dwayne Monroe wrote:


>This is the sort of thing that puzzles me. How could
>anyone believe that a one time infusion of a needed
>but still modest amount of cash (relative to people's
>debts, etc) and increased spending on items like
>cruise missiles would "...jump start" the economy?
>Will 1 million people be employed building F-22
>raptors? Are these "analysts" really so lacking in
>common sense?

Capitalist economies have been known to grow, so it's not impossible that this one could again, and more rapidly than 2.4%. The "jump start" reasoning could go like this: bubble bursting, terrorist attacks, and war have severely dampened business confidence, but nothing turns around sagging confidence like a few upside surprises. And if the boost from military and tax rebate spending produces a few upside surprises, then caution could be replaced by expansiveness. I'm not saying it's going to happen that way, but it could.

Doug



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