For anyone, like fauigerzigerk, who doesn't know what Keynesianism is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_e

For anyone, like fauigerzigerk, who doesn't know what Keynesianism is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics Monetary stimulation buy the government or any entity that creates money is different from transferring money for unproductive uses. Keynes point was that giving out money stimulates economic activity, dis-idling hands. The hole-digging argument was that, while handing out money for productive activity is best (it has two benefits: immediate production of value, plus money that stimulates trade), even handing out money for non-productive activity is still valuable for the stimulating effects. The reason is that I have bananas you want, and you have oranges someone else wants, and someone else has dirt nobody wants, if the government prints money to buy the dirt guy's dirt, and the dirt guy buys oranges, and the orange guy buys bananas, and the banana guy has some money waiting for someone to make something he wants (maybe the dirt guy will make a cool cartoon about oranges), that is better in REAL terms than a pile of rotten bananas and oranges and dirt and nobody getting anything they want at all. Even though the dirt guy got paid for worthless work, real wealth was created by better allocating resources.