Stimulating our Addiction
Lance on Feb 17 2008 at 6:08 pm | Filed under: Economics, Government policy, economy
To spending rather than saving. From Atlas Blogged:
NYC Mayor Bloomberg on the federal economic stimulus plan:
They want to send out a check to everybody to stimulate the economy… I suppose it won’t hurt the economy, but it’s in many senses like giving a drink to an alcoholic.
Hey, hey, hey… alcohol a depressant. This is a stimulus! It’s completely different. Dumb***! (hic!)
By the way, Bloomberg was beat to the analogy by several weeks. TIME’s Michael Kinsley:
The experts caution that for maximum stimulus effect, we must be sure to spend it immediately. No squirreling it away for a rainy day. In drinking circles, they call this hair of the dog: to cure a hangover, you have another drink…
My gripe is that telling Americans they need to borrow and spend just a little bit more to get us past this recession—and then reform their ways—is like telling an alcoholic he needs one more drink before sobering up.
All we need is a “spending like a drunken sailor” comment and we’ll have this confusing stimulus-depressant-finances analogy wrapped up.
Well, that and a chaser.
