Washington Post: Give the Rich More Money

The Washington Post regularly displays its contempt, in both the news and editorial sections, for ordinary workers, as well as its fondness for the wealthy, especially bankers. It does so yet again by running a column today by a "global financial strategist" who tells readers that we need the wealthy to have more money so that they will spend it. Of course anyone can spend money if they have the money. If we want more moderate income people to spend money, instead of trying to push up the stock market, the policy implicitly endorsed by this column, we could have a policy of pushing up the price of old cars and small houses. The Fed could have a special fund that could be used to make zero interest loans to buy cars that are more than 20 years old or houses that cost less than $200,000. This would make moderate income people wealthier and cause them to spend more money. Alternatively, we could apply similar measures internationally. We could have the Fed buy up $4 trillion worth of currencies of countries with per capita income of less than $3,000 a year. This would put money in these people's pockets and cause them to buy more things including more goods produced in the United States. In short, there is no reason why we should try to make the wealthy happy to get them to spend more money. Anyone is capable of spending more money if we give them the means to do so, not just the rich.

--Dean Baker