I honestly believe John Maynard Keynes’s theories on monetary policy have been some of the most dangerous ideas to come out in the last century. Trusting the government with the monetary system is a bad idea because it only encourages them to print money uncontrollably in order to spend on ill-fated projects. As governments are removed from market price feedback they have no way of knowing whether the money they’re spending is a good thing or a bad thing. This becomes all the more obvious when you look at the results of what they spend money one.
The most recent round of stimulus money was supposed to jumpstart the American economy by producing jobs for currently unemployed citizens. On top of that the stimulus money was also supposed to jumpstart government initiates such as the development affordable electric cars. Needless to say it’s not surprising to see the government spend over half a billion dollars on those goals and getting the exact opposite in return:
With the approval of the Obama administration, an electric car company that received a $529 million federal government loan guarantee is assembling its first line of cars in Finland, saying it could not find a facility in the United States capable of doing the work.
I’m sure that Finnish plan is going to help a lot of American get jobs. At least it will lead to affordable electric cars right? Wrong:
Fisker is more than a year behind rolling out its $97,000 luxury vehicle bankrolled in part with DOE money.
At least I don’t think $97,000 can really be considered affordable to the average American. There you have it, yet another example of what happens when the government tries to interfere with the market to steer it towards specific goals.