Saturday, June 06, 2009

Isn't Happening

But while personal income was rising, household savings (which includes paying down credit-card balances, mortgages, student loans, car loans, etc.) rose by $132 billion -- $10 billion more than the rise in income. So personal consumption dropped 0.1 percent.

The stimulus package was a total and complete failure. As predicted, as happened with Bush's 2008 tax cut, as happened with the Japanese stimulus packages of the '90s, fearful consumers sat on their money and wouldn't spend it. Keynesian economics didn't work. Again.

But the debt sure piled up. The deficit quadrupled and is sending interest rates soaring, as the government elbows aside businesses and consumers at the loan window, all in a desperate effort to borrow enough money to spend enough money to stimulate the economy, which isn't happening.

Keynesian economics doesn't work.