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I think it's fairly well understood that Hitler's economic advisors were familiar with The General Theory, though they probably would've built up the military, regardless.  (And I'm amazed Rothbard and Rand didn't attempt to blame Keynes for the rise of Hitler.)  That's obviously not to say that we should blow money on the military everytime we have a recession.  The far-Right spends too much on it, already, in America.  I'm honestly not big on fiscal policy as a tool to combat recession.

On some level, spending is spending is spending.  But it's clearly more advisable to spend on, say, infrastructure rather than on massive military buildup.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin

by Drew J Jones (myfriends@thisispancakes.com) on Fri Nov 11th, 2005 at 02:41:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Take a hundred billion currency units and choose between:

  1.  A fully operational aircraft carrier
  2.  A bunch of power plants

Which is going to be the better investment for further wealth creation?

Over the long term, military assest purchase are negative-sum (it costs money each year to keep them in shape) investments while productive assets are positive-sum investments.  

by ATinNM on Sat Nov 12th, 2005 at 11:37:27 AM EST
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Right.  It costs enormous sums of money to keep military assets in proper condition, especially for countries with nukes.  On infrastructure, I was referring more so to roads, rail, schools, etc.  But power plants are a good example, too.  However, if we're going to invest in power plants with government money, they ought to be power plants run on renewable energy, in my opinion.

We're currently having a big fight in my hometown, Tallahassee, FL, over a coal plant that's being built in the neighboring county.  Tallahassee in a very Democratic city in a very Republican area of the country, and so, naturally, we're not wild about funding a new power plant based on coal.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin

by Drew J Jones (myfriends@thisispancakes.com) on Sat Nov 12th, 2005 at 01:17:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Just force them to agree to installing carbon-capturing technology as a condition to allow the plant to be biult.

guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Nov 12th, 2005 at 03:03:18 PM EST
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