BruceMcF:

Even the best of the mainstream economists, people like Dean Baker, when faced with an 8% Demand Deficit, can look around the landscape of an economy consuming 1/4 of the world's oil production while only producing 1/10 of it, with roughly 1/6 of the world's oil production to run our transport system alone ~ and not find anything for the US Government to spend a big chunk of 8% of US GDP on.

I was thinking of the problem of the "Government as employer of last resort" or the "job guarantee programme" you yourself have advocated on occasion.

So I look around and I see Spain with over 4 million unemployed (an official rate of more than 20%) and for the life of me I cannot imagine what I would employ 4 million people to do "if I were King"...

Not that I'm the brightest of mainstream economists, but I wouldn't even know where to start in order to manage a "job guarantee" programme on that scale.

So, in what may be my last act of "advising", I'll advise you to cut the jargon. -- My old PhD advisor, to me, 26/2/11