Fake an Alien Invasion, Save the U.S. Economy
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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Let this serve as a warning to the rest of you: THIS is why economists shouldn't try to be funny.
Ignoring the obvious silliness, even his actual point is hard to take seriously. "Commit to building lots of military equipment, and we'll get out of recession."
First, that's like saying that you can burn your rafters to keep the house warm. Once we've spent X trillion dollars on vorp rays and disintegrator beams, what's become of all the resources we've burned through? They'll all be sitting in warehouses, doing absolutely nothing - and that's the best case scenario, assuming they don't end up being used on some terrestrial population (which they will).
Second, all of that spending will only delay the recession, not end it. We won't gain much infrastructure, the only people who'll make money will be the already rich, and the deficit will get even bigger. In short, we'll have built an artificial economic bubble, further f*cking up the third world in the process with needless extraction and pollution. Then, the bubble will burst. Hello, depression.
Third, let's think about we're doing here: building military equipment, researching military technology. The United States alone already has enough firepower to literally kill every human on earth. Accruing more destructive power on the scale required would amount to a crime against humanity. There is no conceivable scenario in which it ends well.
What I want to know is how this ding-dong was given a Nobel Prize in the first place.
Ignoring the obvious silliness, even his actual point is hard to take seriously. "Commit to building lots of military equipment, and we'll get out of recession."
First, that's like saying that you can burn your rafters to keep the house warm. Once we've spent X trillion dollars on vorp rays and disintegrator beams, what's become of all the resources we've burned through? They'll all be sitting in warehouses, doing absolutely nothing - and that's the best case scenario, assuming they don't end up being used on some terrestrial population (which they will).
Second, all of that spending will only delay the recession, not end it. We won't gain much infrastructure, the only people who'll make money will be the already rich, and the deficit will get even bigger. In short, we'll have built an artificial economic bubble, further f*cking up the third world in the process with needless extraction and pollution. Then, the bubble will burst. Hello, depression.
Third, let's think about we're doing here: building military equipment, researching military technology. The United States alone already has enough firepower to literally kill every human on earth. Accruing more destructive power on the scale required would amount to a crime against humanity. There is no conceivable scenario in which it ends well.
What I want to know is how this ding-dong was given a Nobel Prize in the first place.
How so? I'm actually really curious.Scytail said:
Orson Welles never meant to fool people into believing his broadcast. It was an accident.-Dragmire- said:
OT: Ummmm...that Twilight Zone episode was sort of a demonstration as to how much a BAD idea this is. Put simply, creating unwarranted conflict to stimulate the economy is bad. Who do you think you are? Zorg?
Yeah, I read about it years ago after finishing the book. Still, regardless of the original intention, it sounded like he was inspired by the result.FalloutJack said:
Isn't it odd how the radio show only played once a day with no news of it anywhere else and some people were still convinced it was real?
I like the part about newspapers being worried by the radical new medium, the radio.
Sounds familiar.
EDIT: The public reaction section was quite long so I only took the first few paragraphs.
source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Worlds_%28radio%29#Public_reaction
Well the alien invasion situation requires the government to invest in military hardware and the other businesses and infrastructure that goes along with it (munitions, fuel, etc) and that I believe would be the model for the keynes "top down" approach to the economy. Now with a zombie invasion, and Im using the book WWZ as an example, required what was left of the governments to invest in reeducating and insuring that every person was employed in some sort of job/vocation that benefited what was left of society or the "bottom up" approach that hayek advocates.The Big Eye said:
I actually thought of something like this, of course it wasn't aliens it was WW3. But it's not an all too revolutionary a concept. WW2 is what got us out of the Great Depression, it wasn't FDR, it was War.
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the main reason ww2 was good for the economy was suddenly allot of people had allot of money instead of just a few people haveing a fuck ton of money, like what we have now
you want to fix the economy then tax the fuck out of the rich and either do alot of social programs or just directly give it to the middle class and under since those are the people who really drive an economy, the rich dont do shit
you want to fix the economy then tax the fuck out of the rich and either do alot of social programs or just directly give it to the middle class and under since those are the people who really drive an economy, the rich dont do shit
Great. Now that he's said it everyone's going to think the real invasion is an economic stimulus hoax. Way to go, PAUL.
Alright I won't even go into the political or economic implications of this idea because everyone, starting with Paul Krugman, has made a grave error!
Watchmen was not inspired by an episode of The Twilight Zone. It was inspired by an episode of the original The Outer Limits, called "The Architects of Fear". It is exactly the Ozymandias gambit, which Alan Moore had in fact planned before seeing the episode. It was so similar and helped him refine his ideas, however, if you look in the last issue of Watchmen there is a literal shout out:
http://www.mister8.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/culpref.jpg
And yes, the wikipedia page on The Architects of Fear has already been updated to point out Krugman's folly, and no, I did not make the edit. Sci-fi nerd hivemind strikes again.
Watchmen was not inspired by an episode of The Twilight Zone. It was inspired by an episode of the original The Outer Limits, called "The Architects of Fear". It is exactly the Ozymandias gambit, which Alan Moore had in fact planned before seeing the episode. It was so similar and helped him refine his ideas, however, if you look in the last issue of Watchmen there is a literal shout out:
http://www.mister8.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/culpref.jpg
And yes, the wikipedia page on The Architects of Fear has already been updated to point out Krugman's folly, and no, I did not make the edit. Sci-fi nerd hivemind strikes again.
War of the Worlds is the wrong analogy here. The "aliens" had already arrived and were doing damage while Krugman is sugesting something more akin to the movie Deep Impact: we have a problem, we can deal with it and we are going to with grace and dignity, and I'm not going to tollerate any arguement about how to handle the problem from people that want a solution that doesn't inconvience them or their bank accounts. Besides, in 1938 a lot fewer people were exposed en masse to entertainment fiction.
Sadly, while he's looking for that "bring us together" moment in a country extremely polorized, I think that polorization has stuck. Bush never completely wiped off the conspiracy theories about 9/11 or Iraq, and there a large section of republicans that wouldn't beleive Obama if he said the sky was blue and water was wet. In a republican administration, few would beleive it was anything but an attempt to up military spending to increase profits of weapon manufacturers. Under a democratic one, well, you just have to look at the effort put into denying evolution or climate change to think that New York could be nuked and republicans would stll want more study on the issue.
Sadly, while he's looking for that "bring us together" moment in a country extremely polorized, I think that polorization has stuck. Bush never completely wiped off the conspiracy theories about 9/11 or Iraq, and there a large section of republicans that wouldn't beleive Obama if he said the sky was blue and water was wet. In a republican administration, few would beleive it was anything but an attempt to up military spending to increase profits of weapon manufacturers. Under a democratic one, well, you just have to look at the effort put into denying evolution or climate change to think that New York could be nuked and republicans would stll want more study on the issue.
I said this a couple months ago. How odd.
But the government would be in more debt then, right? I think that is the one down side to it.
Why don't we say there is a huge asteroid coming to end us and we have to build some sort of space society in that time frame or else we all die?! This way when the asteroid "luckily missed us" we could have solved the over population problem, the economic problem, and have awesome space parties.
*stops dreaming*
It'd be worth it for one really big lie, right?
But the government would be in more debt then, right? I think that is the one down side to it.
Why don't we say there is a huge asteroid coming to end us and we have to build some sort of space society in that time frame or else we all die?! This way when the asteroid "luckily missed us" we could have solved the over population problem, the economic problem, and have awesome space parties.
*stops dreaming*
It'd be worth it for one really big lie, right?
Except theres not really enough oil to transport the shit up to the moon. Let alone mars, without a more effecient space transport. And building it in space itself w/o standing on anything would require more metal than anyone would bother to gather up.Schmittler said:
It wasn't an episode of Twilight Zone it was an episode of the Outer Limits called The Architects of Fear.
Alan Moore has even sighted it as part of his inspiration for Watchmen's ending.
Alan Moore has even sighted it as part of his inspiration for Watchmen's ending.
This is the quality thinking we get from a former Enron advisor. It'd be okay if hundreds of thousands if not millions die as long as the economy recovers right?
I hate this fat ugly neckbearded son of a *****. He's the man that replaced a real thinker named William Saffire on the NYT columnist roster (look him up). That was a man whom I could listen to; he actually had some fucking humility.
Escapist please remember that Yasser Arafat got a nobel prize even though he spoke in front of the UN general assembly with an AK-47 on his shoulder. A Nobel doesn't make you a smart, peaceful, or creative person. It just means the right European progressives like nice-sounding things they agree with.
I hate this fat ugly neckbearded son of a *****. He's the man that replaced a real thinker named William Saffire on the NYT columnist roster (look him up). That was a man whom I could listen to; he actually had some fucking humility.
Escapist please remember that Yasser Arafat got a nobel prize even though he spoke in front of the UN general assembly with an AK-47 on his shoulder. A Nobel doesn't make you a smart, peaceful, or creative person. It just means the right European progressives like nice-sounding things they agree with.
