I was reminded of the Battle of the Somme, one of the worst policy blunders of all time. Having experienced nothing but failure using offensive tactics up to that point, the Allies decided that what they needed to try was. . .a really big offensive. Just as Feldstein and Stiglitz pay no attention to the on-the-ground the housing market, the British generals ignored the impact of machine guns on men advancing over open fields.(via Jonah Goldberg on The Corner)
My guess is that in 1916, anyone who doubted his own ability to direct an enormous offensive involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers would never have made it to general. Similarly, today, anyone who doubts the ability of a handful of technocrats to sensibly allocate $800 billion would never make it into government or the mainstream media.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Can You Top This?
Watching Joseph Stiglitz and Martin Feldstein argue for a bigger stimulus package on Charlie Rose, economist Arnold Kling found it "chilling":
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2 comments:
> ... Similarly, today, anyone who doubts the ability of a handful of technocrats to sensibly allocate $800 billion would never make it into government or the mainstream media.
I think they misspelled that word.
I believe the correct spelling is "kleptocrat".
I'd rather they were stealing the money than allocating it for yet another concrete monument to, say, Robert F. Byrd.
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