Of course he believes the stimulus is a good idea. No politician would wittingly engage on a course of action he KNOWS to be catastrophic. Bush thought the War on Terror was a good idea, and sincerely believed in the wisdom of invading Iraq - and that he would be greeted as a liberator. Stalin was sure collectivization was the way to go for the improvement of the USSR's economic future, and Hitler was convinced his people needed Lebensraum and the Jews were the source of all evil.

The most dangerous men are those who do evil out of sincerity. You can always negotiate with the cynic, and buy off the corrupt, but nobody is less likely to change his mind than the True Believer.

And why wouldn't Obama believe in Keynesian economics? It's all he was ever taught at school, and it's all his friends know about.
 

No politician would wittingly engage on a course of action he KNOWS to be catastrophic...Stalin was sure collectivization was the way to go for the improvement of the USSR's economic future

Not quite true. Stalin thought collectivization would be a good way to militarize the country and liquidate supporters of the New Economic Policy, while consigning the Left Opposition to irrelevance.

Which is exactly what it did.

I think Obama may actually be telling the truth about Republicans and the tax cut/spending ratio - or at least, I remember Democrats chutching about too many tax cuts.

He's also (technically) telling the truth about earmarks. In procedural terms, none of the programs were inserted by the parliamentary measure of earmarking. The hollowness of that (true) claim shows just how lame the earmark reform movement is.

Was the original version better? I guess if a few million here or there for AIDS classes makes it a ton worse in one's eyes...

But the bottom line was the same.

This stimulus bill, whatever Keynesian effect it may or may not have, serves a political purpose. It creates a precedent.

It opens the door for a Singapore/Malaysia/Japan style economy. "Industrial policy", corporate/gov't cooperative R&D, shiny new high-tech infrastructure projects, and chummy relations between big National Champion banks and the state.

That's the road Obama is guiding us down with the stimulus. And he sincerely believes, I think, that it is the best way.

Makes me want to wretch.

Then again, a whole lot of powerful voices are quietly pushing for Argentina: austerity programs, devalue the currency, and sell off everything that's not nailed down.

With those two alternatives in mind I can see where he's coming from.
 

Kingfish wrote "It opens the door for a Singapore/Malaysia/Japan style economy." Can you recommend an online article that would help me understand what kind of economy Japan has? I've been reading lots about Austrian economics lately, and naturally most of the references are to the US (or Europe). I live in Japan, but don't have much of a clue as to what kind of an economic philosophy runs things here.
 

Bush thought the War on Terror was a good idea, and sincerely believed in the wisdom of invading Iraq - and that he would be greeted as a liberator. Stalin was sure collectivization was the way to go for the improvement of the USSR's economic future, and Hitler was convinced his people needed Lebensraum and the Jews were the source of all evil.

James, how do you know such things? You're saying politicians never lie about their programs?
 

Bob,

admittedly, I cannot know these things for certain, but I see this as a valid application of "Hanlon's Razor", according to which one should never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Having spend a lot of time reading about the Soviets and the Nazis, including many of the writings by these people, I have to conclude that to a large degree, they believed what they were doing was essentially right and good.

I have no evidence to believe that Bush did NOT believe invading Iraq was the right thing to do.

He may have lied about the proximate justifications, but this does not rule out that he sincerely believed the ultimate justification for the invasion: that the inclusion of Iraq into the American sphere of power and control is a good thing.

The problem is that an endeavor undertaken under wrong assumptions is bound to result in outcomes not anticipated or expected.

The Iraq debacle was ultimately based on wrong assumptions about so many things, it's hard to start enumerating them. But, I doubt that Bush is driven by malice, that he enjoyed killing innocent people for the sport of it, and that relished the idea of bringing ruin to his own country.

We all lie to ourselves about our motives - and more often than not, we are not entirely sure what it is that really motivates us: humans are complex beings, driven by many different - and often contradictory - motives.

But, at the end of day, humans try to do what they think is right.

I doubt that Stalin MEANT to send millions to the gulags and have them die horrible deaths there, just for the fun of it. No, I am certain he a) never thought much about it, and b) thought he had good reasons to do so (and probably had many more excuses, and probably did not even fully comprehend what he was doing).

Of course, maybe Bush was a complete cynic and simply wanted to enrich his friends and family. But - I don't see much evidence for that.

If you look at the history of the people around him, almost all of them seem to believe in what they were doing.

I think, maybe, the fundamental error I may be committing is this: I don't believe humans are 'evil' (nor are they 'good') - but that they are first and foremost social creatures, eager be accepted by their peers.

Those humans who do NOT have this desire are either psychopaths. But, I doubt a real psychopath would be capable of becoming a national leader (since this requires the ability to function in a socially acceptable manner).

What can happen, of course, is that a person becomes psychopathic after gaining a position of power - which is what appears to have happened to Stalin later in his life when he descended into a deep sinkhole of paranoia.
 

Marc, you could start here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_post-war_economic_miracle
 

I've been wondering about this point as well and I have concluded that as far as Keynesian stimulus, he believes it. What I found curious is his reaction to the stimulus bill. Which was nothing. No ranting about earmarks or pork. I think he thinks that it doesn't matter what the government spends the money for, just as long as they spend. I think his economic advisors, Summers, Geithner, and Romer believe it too. So he just let his party do what they wanted, with the confidence that this will pull the economy out of the fire.

Not to say he doesn't lie. In his address to Congress last night he said there are no earmarks in the bill, that he doesn't want big government, and that he can balance the budget in 4 years. Now, he really can't believe that.
 

Bob,

The best salesmen believe in what they are selling, and believe it sincerely. I don't see why politicians would be any different. Political institutions must select for people who seem sincere, and the best way to seem sincere is to actually be sincere.

Robin Hansen has a bunch of good posts on power over at OvercomingBias. His opinion, which seems plausible to me, is that humans are capable of great feats of self-deception in order to acquire power. Perhaps we are wrong to think that power corrupts, instead of assuming that the abuse of power was the plan (even if not consciously) all along?
 

Rothfeld:

"No politician would wittingly engage on a course of action he KNOWS to be catastrophic."

My response: social security.

Enough said?
 

James,

Your application of "Hanlon's Razor" is, I think, inapplicable to politics.

Men who run for president wish for the office that maintains policy because it controls the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.

This sounds to me more like malice than anything.