Stimulus done right

Posted by Marc Hodak on April 8, 2009 under Economics | Be the First to Comment

Stimulus spending in Iraq, via Michael J. Totten:

“It’s a well-executed and targeted display of money as power,” Captain Boyes said. “It’s a weapon system. It’s great. We have to interact with the locals. Not only is the platoon leader going out to find a viable candidate for this grant, he has to spend that time analyzing the business, talking to the shop owner and seeing what the business needs. The money can be used for anything to start a business. It can be used to expand a business, to hire new employees, anything like that. They’ll go in there and talk to the shop owner and ask him what are the top three needs.”

Sadr City

“We typically don’t put any dollar amount on it,” Captain Looney said. “We say what are your top three needs to improve your business? And we’ll ask them how much that will cost. Most of the time they have a well thought-out plan. They’ll give us exactly what they need, how much each item costs, and we’ll bounce that off what we know from our own experience and how much we know it should cost. We’re not going to let them say it costs 5,000 dollars for a small generator. We’re not going to be raked over the coals. Most people are honest. They give us a fair estimate of the costs. As soon as we give them the money, they use the money immediately to improve their location.

“I can take you to a hookah bar and chai shop,” he continued, “where we’ve given them a grant and they made drastic improvements to the outside. That had a great impact because it showed what U.S. forces are willing to do for Iraqis. It’s a cultural and social hub of this neighborhood. Many people see what we’ve done for them. We didn’t just make an investment with one person, the business owner. There may be hundreds of local men in the area who go to this hookah shop every week, and we made an impact with all of them.”

Park, Sadr City

“We see it as a business opportunity for them and a security opportunity for us,” Captain Boyes said. “We’ve increased the general atmospherics. People are more open to talking to us or giving us a phone call and giving us information. We have had actual tangible results where people have called up and told us where IEDs were placed. And the only reason he called us is because his brother received a microgrant.”

What is lost on most voters in the more comfortable quarters of civilization is that any form of government spending is a “display of money as power.”  Unfortunately, our’s is not quite as well-executed or targeted.