Potemkin Stimulus: One Way to Offset Austerity
http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/potemkin-stimulus-one-way-to-offset-austerity/
How far away are we from doing this? I doubt it is very. At the moment we rush around and spend huge dollars replacing broken things (like bridges, cities; generally with borrowed money) instead of doing the nearly infinitely cheaper maintenance and preparation, how much longer before we stop that and just put up cheap billboards with pretty images of the ‘repaired’ location? Our government already has an incredibly sort attention span (a few weeks, generally, thanks in large part to our media’s constant focus on right now), how much follow through was there actually on the BP oil spill, Katrina, Sandy, etc.? “We will make you whole” is a dramatic speech, but once our Great Leaders have moved on (often within minutes) the reality of YOYO (your on your own) settles in.
