Economist Paul Krugman Suggests Watchmen-esque Alien Invasion To Save Economy.

Paul Krugman has seen the light. He realizes that the only way to rally ourselves out of our fiscal slump is for the government to fake an alien invasion. Well fuck, do you have any better ideas?

Comics Alliance:

Think about World War II — that was actually negative social product spending and yet it brought us out… If we discovered that space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive build-up to counter the space alien threat, and inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months. And then if we discovered, “whoops, we made a mistake,” we’d [still] be better… There was a Twilight Zone episode like this, in which scientists fake an alien threat in order to achieve world peace. Well, this time we need it to get some fiscal stimulus.

[cont]

The television episode Krugman refers to was not from  The Twilight Zone, however, but rather an episode of similar 1960s sci-fi series  The Outer Limits, titled “The Architects of Fear.”  Watchmen  writer Alan Moore says he came across the episode mid-way through scripting the comic book series, after he had already conceived of the idea for the ending. In an interview with  Entertainment Weekly, he recalls thinking, “Wow. That’s a bit close to our story.”

Shit man, do what you gotta do.