Krugman in Need of Remedial Education

Posted: 14 Apr 2009 01:42 PM PDT

Paul Krugman is back in his usual form of preaching sheer idiocy with his piece Time for bottles in coal mines.

Krugman is upset that Obama says stimulus projects under budget.

"By the end of next year our investment in highway projects alone will create or save 150,000 jobs, most of them in the private sector," Obama said during an appearance at the Transportation Department to plug his plan.

"What is most remarkable about this effort ... isn't just the size of our investment or the number of projects we're investing in. It is how quickly, efficiently and responsibly those investments have been made," Obama said.

"This government effort is coming in ahead of schedule and under budget," he said.

Obama said fierce competition for the projects had led to bids coming in under budget in many states around the country. The White House said bids have been 15 to 20 percent lower than expected on average.

"Because these projects are proceeding so efficiently, we now have more recovery dollars to go around, and that means we can fund more projects, revitalize more of our infrastructure, put more people back to work," he said.
Logic would dictate that getting more work done for less cost and employing more people to do it would be a good thing. But Noooooooo! Krugman says "Seriously: if the projects really are coming in cheaper than expected, that doesn’t mean we should bank the savings; it means that we need more projects."

Here's the deal. If a road needs patching then patch it. If a bridge needs fixing then fix it. The least amount of money spent the better. That is plain common sense that any eighth grader could easily understand.

Somehow Kurgman believes the more money is wasted on projects the better off we will be. Krugman even cites Keynes' Marginal Propensity To Consume absurdity that burying money in coal mines will stimulate the economy.


Mike "Mish" Shedlock
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