As monetary policy reaches its limits, it's time for governments to spend

by Barry Eichengreen Monday, Mar. 21, 2016 at 4:53 AM
marc1seed@yahoo.com

With interest rates so low, governments should borrow to invest in research, education, and infrastructure. Productive public investment would also enhance the returns on private investment, encouraging firms to undertake additional projects.

to read Barry Eichengreen's article published on March 11, 2016 in The Guardian, click on

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/mar/11/as-monetary-policy-reaches-its-limits-its-time-for-governments-to-start-spending

The US did not experience hyperinflation in the 1920s – or at any other time in its history. But for the better part of two centuries, its citizens have been suspicious of federal government power, including the power to run deficits, which is fundamentally a federal prerogative. From independence through the Civil War, that suspicion was strongest in the American South, where it was rooted in the fear that the federal government might abolish slavery.
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In the mid-twentieth century, during the civil rights movement, it was again the Southern political elite that opposed the muscular use of federal power.