http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/06/opinion/06krugman.html

The story of 1937, of F.D.R.’s disastrous decision to heed those who said that it was time to slash the deficit, is well known. What’s less well known is the extent to which the public drew the wrong conclusions from the recession that followed: far from calling for a resumption of New Deal programs, voters lost faith in fiscal expansion.

Consider Gallup polling from March 1938. Asked whether government spending should be increased to fight the slump, 63 percent of those polled said no. Asked whether it would be better to increase spending or to cut business taxes, only 15 percent favored spending; 63 percent favored tax cuts. And the 1938 election was a disaster for the Democrats, who lost 70 seats in the House and seven in the Senate.

Then came the war.

From an economic point of view World War II was, above all, a burst of deficit-financed government spending, on a scale that would never have been approved otherwise. Over the course of the war the federal government borrowed an amount equal to roughly twice the value of G.D.P. in 1940 — the equivalent of roughly $30 trillion today.

Had anyone proposed spending even a fraction that much before the war, people would have said the same things they’re saying today. They would have warned about crushing debt and runaway inflation. They would also have said, rightly, that the Depression was in large part caused by excess debt — and then have declared that it was impossible to fix this problem by issuing even more debt.

But guess what? Deficit spending created an economic boom — and the boom laid the foundation for long-run prosperity. Overall debt in the economy — public plus private — actually fell as a percentage of G.D.P., thanks to economic growth and, yes, some inflation, which reduced the real value of outstanding debts.

But the story of 1938 also shows how hard it is to apply these insights. Even under F.D.R., there was never the political will to do what was needed to end the Great Depression; its eventual resolution came essentially by accident.

I had hoped that we would do better this time. But it turns out that politicians and economists alike have spent decades unlearning the lessons of the 1930s, and are determined to repeat all the old mistakes. And it’s slightly sickening to realize that the big winners in the midterm elections are likely to be the very people who first got us into this mess, then did everything in their power to block action to get us out.

Сначала были рассказы, что у Тойоты все хорошо, в отличие от GM. Теперь, когда всплыли факты - оказывается, просто так народные деньги можно давать, а аттачить стринги - это уже социализм.
А тот факт что тойотовский CEO получает в 14 раз меньше GMовского - это тоже результат рыночной регуляции ? Или государству иногда таки надо на яйца зарвавшимся жирным котам наступать, а ?

Я хотел сказать, что при наступлении жопы в частном потреблении, государству полезно и правильно временно нарастить государственное потребление.

И, кстати, непонятно, как одеяло уползло в частные руки еще с прошлого раза - когда Штаты потратили 30 триллионов в сегодняшних долларах ? Само собой обратно вернулось ? Если да - то что мешает этому одеялу повторить трюк ?