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the president with congress has the power to help the markets by intervening to strengthen the working class through infrastructure and small-business spending
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That's what we like to think. In reality, the economy is more powerful than all that, because it includes
everything.
So often, well-intended and seemingly logical government measures wind up like pushing on a rope. The stimulus was like that. Hey let's have the government spend a huge amount, more than ever before, because economists tell us that government spending can take up the slack of less spending everywhere else.
And so they pushed that rope, but the economy failed to take up the slack. Why, well, that's a terrible and difficult question, because at the root of all economics is human behavior, and that's amazingly hard to predict.
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intervening to strengthen the working class through infrastructure and small-business spending
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All data shows that people, the economy, and the state of the nation improve when people are homeowners. Homeowners are stable, raise better families, are invested in their community, improve schools through local taxation, and have a future retirement plan in their home's equity.
So, let's have a government program to strengthen the working class by offering them mortgage deals!
Oops?! Well it was logical at the time.