The Economy That Was Immune to Keynesian Viagra

I did a post a while ago showing just what a waste education has become by calculating how much GDP is yielded per dollar in educational spending.  This ratio was essentially a "return on investment" for the now trillion dollars we spend on education annually and showed not only diminishing marginal returns but just what a sad and pathetic lot populates the education industry.

But then I got an idea while motorcycling around.

Since Obama, Krugman, and every other leftist economist out there is constantly plugging Keynesian stimulus and government spending as the way to get the economy out of its doldrums (still waiting by the way guys, anytime time now), I figured a similar calculation would be called for in that if there's a ratio that would measure Keynesian success, it would be GDP per dollar in federal government spending.  In short, since there is that *COUGH COUGH WHEEZE WHEEZE* "multiplier effect" a dollar in government spending should result in multiple amounts of GDP.

So here it is:

You'll note that the Great Depression and WWII skew things a bit.  When nearly half of your production goes into the war effort, you can expect some odd ratios, so I made another chart post WWII, but keeping 1945 in there so you can see where we came from:

And shucks howdy, look at that.  Just like education spending, it looks like federal government spending just isn't getting the bang for the buck it used to.  In those "evil 50's" you would get $6.50 in GDP for every $1 in government spending, now we only get $4.30.  Matter of fact, in the short 5 years since America's first socialist president took over we lost nearly a buck in GDP per government dollar of spending.  The Keynesian Viagra just isn't taking, so what is going on?

It's very simple - government spending does not, in fact, contribute to economic growth.  It takes away from economic growth and merely redistributes wealth with a production or efficiency loss.

If you look at what leftists and Keynesians advocate, they advocate merely moving money around in the economy to get things "shaking up a bit" in the childish and naive hopes this jostling will get the economy going again.  The problem is this "shaking things up a bit" means taking money from productive people (or the future via borrowing) and giving it to Barack Obama's biggest supporters - economically worthless, productionless parasites.

I say such things not in the pejorative, but in accuracy.  That's who gets the lions share of money.  People who don't work.  People who don't produce.  People who are not independent and, thus, by default, and dependent and parasitical.

The problem with such people (and thus, a Keynesian economic stimulus plan) is that they do nothing to earn it.  And that is why GDP is not as responsive today to government spending as in days past.  Normally when you give somebody money you do so for some kind of production or service in exchange  You don't just randomly pass out money, you expect a soda, a video game, a burger or something in return.  But the government (specifically, Keynesian stimulus) doesn't work that way.  It takes money from people's savings, their income, or the future, normally productive people, and gives it to non-productive people in exchange for nothing.  Not one cent of GDP is produced when you pay out a social security check.  Not one cent of GDP is produced when you pass out Obamaphones.  Not one cent of GDP is produced when you hand out food stamps.

Of course people will argue not all of the stimulus spending is handouts and income transfers.  Why there are billions of dollars of grants, investments, etc., that go to bail out companies, invest in new technologies, etc.  And this is true.  Such government spending DOES get some modicum of return in the form of GDP...just not as much as if it remained in the private sector.

I need not remind people of the spectacular failure and losses of Solyndra and the score of other connected-cronies of Obama who faked like they were serious about building a solar company.  I need not remind people of the billions spent on worthless social programs and the employees that manage them that not only fail to solve the social ailment they contend they're trying to fix, but also results in fake GDP as nothing anybody REALLY wanted was produced.  And wasn't there a bridge (though in a Republican's district) to the middle of nowhere?  Again, Keynesian spending might get a bang for its federal government buck, but comes nowhere near as productive and high as the private sector.

No, the truth is that not only is government spending inherently NOT economic production, when you give it to the least productive and parasitic groups of people in the nation to either not produce at all or to fake producing (so public school teachers can claim they have some kind of "career" while their students shoot each other and can't read out of high school), you can expect the economy to stagnate and the ratios we have charted above.

But what's really precious is how so many people think the likes of Obama and Krugman are still well-intending, just misled about economics.  The reality is they hate this country, they hate freedom, they hate success, they hate liberty, and they make their careers off of giving an ignorant electorate their undeserved pound of by destroying the country.

Enjoy the decline!