Later in life, I learned that some of those professors didn’t know on purpose. They weren’t teaching economics, they were preaching a political agenda. I can save you tens of thousands of dollars in tuition fees and just tell you the thrux of modern, progressive economics right now. No matter what happens, raise taxes and spend more. Got deflation? Tax and spend. Got inflation? Tax and spend. Stagflation? Unemployment? Poor people? Throwing a war? Need some votes? Something bad happen? Something good? Is it Tuesday or some other day? Raise taxes and spend more.

Smart people figured out long ago that this would create nirvana and they’re still convinced today. It seems perfect to them, like something that couldn’t possibly be improved. But not everybody was on board. Namely, the taxpayers. So we democratically struck a compromise and met each other halfway. We dropped the raise taxes and kept the spend more. We call it “Keynesian” economics. We have books, charts, and graphs, and if you don’t believe in it, well then you’re just hard-down stupid.

Keynesians tell us that responsible government leaders should muster all of their will and somehow find the courage to borrow money and spend it. Sooner or later, everybody elected to public office is Keynesian.

The idea is that the government can “inject money into the economy”, thereby stimulating it to move. That sounds exciting but there’s one really good reason why the government can’t put money into the economy. That’s because the government doesn’t have any money. If you cut up a pie and rearrange the pieces, you don’t have more pie. You probably just have a mess.

Today, on Friday the 13th of February, 2009, 3 Republicans joined 57 Democrats and went full-on Keynesian. They lowered taxes and increased spending. The Democrats wanted to spend and the Republicans wanted to cut taxes, so they did. They carefully weighed the proportionate popularity of each attendee and decided to go 2/3 spending and 1/3 tax cut. Personally, I’m not convinced that they did the right thing. If government spending was the answer, wouldn’t there be no problem?

But none of that really matters now. What’s done is done and I’m absolutely convinced that none of the sophisticated economic theories determine whether or not we sink into depression or soar to commanding heights. Economies don’t get depressed, consumers and producers do.

We’ve had some very real problems. Bad mortgages, expensive energy, bureaucracy, outsourcing, and war just to name a few. It’s enough to bum anybody out. I truly believe that an economic depression is just that – a collective depression. Producers and consumers are frightened and filled with doubt.

So how do we get out of this? What would work? I think that’s the wrong question. It’s not “what would work” but “who would work”? Working people pay for everything. Not only do they pay their own way, but their charities maintain the poor and their purchases create the rich. Working people drive the economy. The most important thing about the action today is whether or not people believe it will work. If enough people believe the economy will work, then it will.