Comment by randallsquared
6 days ago
> Spending money not as a means to an end, but as the end in itself?
Welcome to the macroeconomics practical, where we'll dig a ditch, refill it, and count it as a productive addition to the economy both times!
6 days ago
> Spending money not as a means to an end, but as the end in itself?
Welcome to the macroeconomics practical, where we'll dig a ditch, refill it, and count it as a productive addition to the economy both times!
If doing it lowers the cost of earth movers and gets 20 other groups to each dig their own ditch, that's actually money well spent.
No, it depends on what else you could have spent the money on. Perhaps that would have been even better?
This is a typical argument for state intervention in the marketplace, but it is weaker if one makes different assumptions about the state of the market absent the intervention. In order to show that it was money well spent, you'd have to show that it's better to have more groups digging, and that there wouldn't have been enough diggers without GovDitch.
Well, also that spending on needless digging would have been the best use of the resources. Instead of spending on something more immediately useful (or leaving the money with the taxpayers).
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