I was going to ignore this as a "who cares" until I got to:<p><i>in the end there is simply no argument that it is much better for the country to utilize the resources and wealth to stimulate the economy as a whole than letting a few people sit on it so they can get richer by doing nothing with it.</i><p>Not only is it false that there's "no argument", but your statement is completely wrong.<p>If there were no argument, you wouldn't be seeing arguments from prominent economists like Greg Mankiw, Bryan Caplan, and Tyler Cowen. And indeed, they've got good arguments. The idea that burning through money to stimulate the economy comes from the Keynesian tradition -- but we know from the 70's double-shot of inflation <i>and</i> unemployment that the Keynesian model is wrong (the question is, "just <i>how</i> wrong?").<p>But your statement that they're sitting on their wealth doing nothing with it is the biggest demonstration that you're off base. As far as I know, nobody rich is doing this. If they're stashing it under their mattress, I don't think they'd have gotten rich in the first place. If they've got it invested in stocks or bonds or even banks, then it's not idle and doing nothing. It's helping other people finance their businesses, buy houses, whatever. But it's <i>definitely</i> doing something useful. In fact, it's doing something so useful that the people using the money are willing to rent it from them.<p>Contrast this to government spending, which according to Keynesian theory could be used by paying people to dig holes and fill them back in, so long as the government is doing this. In the Keynesian model (that Obama and the rest of the government is using), the money does not get used productively. When the rich guy rents his money to someone willing to pay for it, it's much more likely to find good use.