Your Go-To Guys for Stimulus-Watching (And Some Bullet Points)

Or at least mine, would be this crowd here. Meanwhile, here are a bunch of things I know, I think:

• We will never again in my lifetime be as rich as we (thought we) were for these past ten years. I could have said the same thing with truth were I the age I am now in 1929.

• "The multiplier"--how much bang for the stimulus buck?--is an empirical question on which the data are almost certain to be soggy or equivocal. This is an inescapable truth that neither side seems willing to address candidly. My own untutored guess is that there is (a) some; and (b) we don't know how much--and would not know how much even if we had perfect foresight as to exacly how much we will spend, and on what.

• Projects that are good for infrastructure may not be good stimulus, and projects that are good stimulus may not be good for infrastructure.
  

• The vast majority of voters (and Congresspeople) don't get that last distinction. They think if it looks looks like a pet project of theirs (aka "infrastructure"), then it must be good stimulus. The more I see of the current proposals, the more they look to me like pet projects and the less they look like stimulus.
  

• Conservatives aren't willing to admit that some stimulus projects work. World War II was a stimulus that works. Henry VIII's confiscation of the monastaries (i.e., and redistribution to eager beaver entrepreneurial gentry) was a stimulus that worked. Indeed, breaking up great estates and distributing land to the peasants is probably often a stimulus that works.

• Liberals aren't willing to admit that a lot of putative stimulus takes money out of other productive uses or drives up inflation.
  

• Politicians love "projects" not merely because they like to please constituents but because they like things they can put their name on.
  

• When push comes to shove, your chances of being reelected are probably better if you slosh a lot of money for lousy "stimulus' than you are if you forebear to do anything because you can't find a good stimulus.

• A hard headed skinflint like Warren Buffett, who understands everything I have said here, is nonetheless for a hefty "stimulus" because he believes the appearance of doing something can sometimes work better than not doing anything at all. And he is correct.

The amount that we end up spending will be vastly greater than anybody acknowledges today.