[fhayek]

Well, that was the kind of info that I was looking for. Double counting. Of course. Still, it occurs to me that we would be much further ahead with policies that promote the fundamentals of a sound, well-functioning economy, and not all of this stimulus nonsense. I mean, the borrowing and the quantitative easing are not providing much current bang for our buck, but they most likely will create problems down the line.

[Southack]

Most of the economic drag is from increased transaction costs and operational costs in manhours and money from things like over-regulation, taxation, and tort. Reduce any of that and the economy will improve.

Other areas of economic drag are from the reduction in available private credit (which takes a hit with every borrowed federal Dollar) and energy+labor costs...which oilfield fracking helps ease.

Any serious leader could easily goose the U.S. economy by improving energy costs (e.g. increasing federal leases, offshore, fracking, pipelines), reducing government borrowing, encouraging more private credit lending, reducing the overall regulatory burden, reducing tort liability, and/or reducing the overall taxation burden.