Books by Alex Kerr

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Book
Mentions on MR
Dogs and demons
Dogs and Demons (2009-01-13)

The subtitle is Tales from the Dark Side of Japan and the author is Alex Kerr.  It is recommended reading for those who would have Obama expand his stimulus plan to include more construction.  Here are some strung-together excerpts:

Japanese fiscal policy in the 1990s (2008-12-21)

5. The history is fully consistent with an alternative interpretation, as I have discussed in my post on the fetishization of measured gdp .  Namely, the Japanese spent more money putting unemployed resources to work on construction projects.  Measured gdp went up, but the Japanese didn’t get much of value for their money.  (Japanese construction projects from this era are notoriously ugly, wasteful, and unpopular .)  The spending also didn’t set off any kind of lasting recovery.  It was the pro...