On those unemployment check extensions

John Lott hits one out of the park with his latest, and raises a question that I've asked as well; by exactly what magic is government spending more powerful in helping the economy than private sector spending--or is it?  The standard Keynesian answer is that the economy is driven by consumer spending, not capital investment, but that's largely an argument that because there is more consumer spending than capital investment or other categories, we ought to stimulate consumer spending.  As far as I can tell, there is no serious reason why we should believe that giving someone an unemployment check is economically preferable to allowing those funds to remain in the hands of his prospective employer.

In fact, it may be far worse for many reasons, starting with the fact that this extra burden reduces capital available for hiring, and increases the price point at which people will be willing to work--not too many take jobs at or below the value of their unemployment checks, of course.  Worse yet, it's creating a class of workers who have not worked for over three years, leading to a certain "staleness" in work ethic and skills in those workers.  In other words, we may be creating a class of people who are more or less permanently unemployable by paying them to sit on their rears.

So why doesn't Comrade Obama figure this out?  Well, to jump on a soapbox I use often, I'm guessing that he has not, despite his Ivy League degrees, gotten a liberal education and learned how to think. 

Save your country; train your children in the Trivium.