Posted by Kromey at 1:33pm Sep 18 '12In Britain, many years ago, there was a massive cholera outbreak. There were two competing thoughts at the time to how to treat the disease's victims: On one side, they got clean water and rest in clean, warm beds; on the other, they were bled by leeches. Looking back on this today, it's unsurprising that the former group had a higher survival rate than the latter.
To this day, this story is still held up as proof that homeopathic remedies -- you know those "medicines" with questionable utility even before they're diluted to the point that you have better odds of winning the Lotto jackpot than you do of getting even a single molecule of the supposed "medicine" in your water -- are better than modern evidence-based medicine.
How is this relevant? Well, it's a given that the economy will eventually recover, with or without government intervention -- not even the staunchest Keynesian economist doubts this. When it does, naturally, the Keynesians will look back at this and pronounce that they have saved us all, when the truth is that there's no evidence they have.
In fact, when we're looking back at this, we'll be doing so under the crushing weight of even more government debt. It's foolhardy to continue to spend spend spend, then simply print more worthless paper so you can spend some more, and pretend that there won't be dire consequences down the road.
Oh, and I love the hypocrisy of this -- a Democratic administration practicing the very same "trickle-down economics" they blast the Republicans for! Somehow handing giant wads of cash to the big boys is supposed to "trickle down" into helping out the little guys. I guess it's only a bad thing when it's the other side's guy doing it, eh? Kind of like destroying American civil liberties and waging illegal wars, hm?
To this day, this story is still held up as proof that homeopathic remedies -- you know those "medicines" with questionable utility even before they're diluted to the point that you have better odds of winning the Lotto jackpot than you do of getting even a single molecule of the supposed "medicine" in your water -- are better than modern evidence-based medicine.
How is this relevant? Well, it's a given that the economy will eventually recover, with or without government intervention -- not even the staunchest Keynesian economist doubts this. When it does, naturally, the Keynesians will look back at this and pronounce that they have saved us all, when the truth is that there's no evidence they have.
In fact, when we're looking back at this, we'll be doing so under the crushing weight of even more government debt. It's foolhardy to continue to spend spend spend, then simply print more worthless paper so you can spend some more, and pretend that there won't be dire consequences down the road.
Oh, and I love the hypocrisy of this -- a Democratic administration practicing the very same "trickle-down economics" they blast the Republicans for! Somehow handing giant wads of cash to the big boys is supposed to "trickle down" into helping out the little guys. I guess it's only a bad thing when it's the other side's guy doing it, eh? Kind of like destroying American civil liberties and waging illegal wars, hm?
This reminds me of a story - Kromey