stimulus idea

I can’t say that I’m big fan of the Keynesian “let’s spend our way out of this recession.” stimulus ideas. That’s partly due to my feeling that some people spending some money isn’t going to make a whole lot of difference. The bigger issue is likely the fact that I know almost nothing about economics. Maybe that’s not really a hindrance to the understanding the issue though because I also think there are a lot of economists that don’t understand economics. I guess there is a reason why economics is an arts degree and not a science degree (that isn’t a slight against the arts).

If we’re going to spend a ton of money though, I like what Jim Stanford, Economist for Canadian Autoworkers, had to say. Rather than spend willy-nilly on every little thing possible, which is what the Harper government has proposed, how about Stanford’s idea? He said the following on CBC’s The National.

Let’s have a massive public investment program. I say $20b a year over 5 years. On the environment, clean energy, green cars, insulate buildings, the whole bit. And you’ll get something that you need, to improve the environment, and hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Harper’s plan in comparison is more of a “throw money at everything and hope something happens.” And Harper is supposed to be an economist and pretty smart to boot. My guess is that his economic plan is much more about politics than economics. A give everybody some money and they’ll all vote for you kind of thing.