Dave Obey spent a trillion on mass psychotherapy

From a fiscal Times interview with Dave Obey:

And then [White House Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel said to me, "Geez, do you really think we can afford to come in with a package that big, isn’t it going to scare people?" I said, "Rahm, you will need that shock value so that people understand just how serious this problem is."

Mass psychotherapy from Congressional politicians?  No wonder multipliers are less than one.  I doubt that Keynes ever consulted with a psychotherapist, which would be Freud in his later years during the 1930s.  I suspect Freud would not have recommended shock, and I know it never works with cow herds.

Economists are nuts.  Politicians will believe anything that lets them spend money.

Krugman chimes in on the debate, claiming that a Congress which is spending money at  13% YoY growth is going to shock the masses into productive work?   Wrong psychotherapy, and neither Keynes nor Krugman have anything approaching a theory of mass psychology.  When an economists does not get psychology then the economists should stick to the truth, which in Krugman's case is that we were Stranded in Suburbia.


Bringing up another point.  What Freud would have said is that the first impulse, as in Stranded in Suburbia, is generally the correct impulse because the first impulse generally sneaks past the defense mechanisms.