Care to explain that to me?Zahveed wrote:I didn't vote, it's too black and white.
Is It Time For Goverment To Run Some Factories?
I beleive that one one part of an economic stimulus program would be for the federal government to build and run some factories, at least for a limited time period.
One concern about the government printing and spending money is that it is inflationary. My view is that when the government prints and spends it pumps up demand for goods and services. If you have more demand chasing the same amount of goods and services you have inflation; however, if you have more demand chasing more goods and services you wouldn't necessarily have inflation. The government could thereby reduce unemployment and underemployment in a non-inflationary way buy printing and spending money and using that money to hire and pay people to produce goods in factories.
This could also go a very long way towards "green energy." The factories could build photovoltaic cells, mirrors for solar thermal electric plants, and windmills. They could also attempt a large pilot plant or two to see if mass production of lithium-ion batteries would reduce their production costs enough to make electric vehicles cost competitive with internal-combustion vehicles.
Once the economy recovers, the factories could be auctioned to private companies for private-sector production, similar to retooling factories during World War II that built tanks and fighter jets to build cars, TVs, and appliances.
One concern about the government printing and spending money is that it is inflationary. My view is that when the government prints and spends it pumps up demand for goods and services. If you have more demand chasing the same amount of goods and services you have inflation; however, if you have more demand chasing more goods and services you wouldn't necessarily have inflation. The government could thereby reduce unemployment and underemployment in a non-inflationary way buy printing and spending money and using that money to hire and pay people to produce goods in factories.
This could also go a very long way towards "green energy." The factories could build photovoltaic cells, mirrors for solar thermal electric plants, and windmills. They could also attempt a large pilot plant or two to see if mass production of lithium-ion batteries would reduce their production costs enough to make electric vehicles cost competitive with internal-combustion vehicles.
Once the economy recovers, the factories could be auctioned to private companies for private-sector production, similar to retooling factories during World War II that built tanks and fighter jets to build cars, TVs, and appliances.