« Good News and Bad News from the GDP release | Main | Multipliers, under Differing Monetary Regimes »

A victim of its own success?

One of the more embarrassing features of the New Deal was the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, which paid farmers to slaughter livestock and plow up good crops, as if destroying useful goods could somehow make the nation wealthier. And yet here we are again, with the cash for clunkers program insisting that working vehicles must be junked to qualify for the subsidy. Economist Mom laments the tragedy and waste, as only an economist and mother could:

I don't think I can do it.... I mean, look at all the time and money (and love) I've poured into the (already) old beagle I adopted almost two years ago. ...