Krugman: Spend Now, Save Later

[Final-Fan]

mrstickball said:
Now, about the land issues of America and the dust bowl:

http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/F/FR013.html

After some time, the government gave away free homes and waived all fees for people to get free land from former indian territories. Essentially, the government gave them the land, provided they 'improved it'. How did they improve it? By laying the ground work for massive farms, which eventually led to the over-farming which casued the dust bowl.

So, at what point does "you can have this land free if you are willing to farm it for X years" become equivalent to "hey and in a decade or two, why don't you start practicing inappropriately intensive farming techniques".  I really don't think you can blame that on the government but whatever floats your boat.  I just don't know how you square it with the private businesses being super smart. 

edit:  also how sure are you that these farms were "massive"?  I thought this was more like homesteading. 

edit2:  lol, just noticed that the law you refer to is more like a "farm bailout".  They were already there, they just had trouble paying the bills.  So they pressured Congress to pay for them.  It was never supposed to be free.