Horror show

Here are suggestions from NYT readers on how the government can help "stimulate" the economy.

Collectively, I think the comments help explain why actual trained economists are surprisingly well paid.

I didn't look all the way through but most of these make about as much sense as giving everyone a crystal to rub with "Whip Inflation Now" written on it in a sort of New Age tribute to Gerald Ford. Actually, that would almost certainly dominate actual NYT reader suggestions like tripling the minimum wage or subsidizing oil prices (just like all those clever poor countries do!) until our "Manhattan project" (boom!) for energy pans out or reducing CEO compensation so that the good CEOs will all go work for foreign firms.

Yowza! It is indeed, as I often say, amazing that anything works at all.

Hat tip: the marginal revolutionaries

Addendum: I prefer the Onion's plan here to almost everything from the NYT readers.

Hat tip: reason