There are stimulus plans, and then there are stimulus plans. In one of the strangest intersections between the fantastic in popular culture and politics, an economist is drawing upon the idea of alien invasion to get us out of the recession. As an opinion piece in The Week writes:

There’s no shortage of ideas on how to help the faltering economy, but Nobel Prize winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has come up with what has to be the oddest suggestion yet: Fake a looming invasion from outer space. In an interview with CNN, Krugman cited “a Twilight Zone episode in which scientists fake an alien threat in order to achieve world peace. Well, this time… we’d need it in order to get some fiscal stimulus.”

In the analysis of the idea that continues it notes a major flaw in the idea:

The trouble is, that theory has been “debunked by economists on both the right and the left.” It wasn’t war-time spending that sparked the postwar boom — it was the return to normalcy after years of privation and rationing, and the role our unscathed industries played in rebuilding the ruins overseas.

Beyond this financial critique I’d like to add another for what it’s worth. When I first heard the source cited for this idea, an episode of The Twilight Zone, I scratched my head trying to remember which episode the economist might have in mind. It turns out it was not The Twilight Zone, but rather the source may be found another very good science fiction program from the same time period, The Outer Limits, in an episode titled “The Architects of Fear.” This episode can be watched in entirety at Hulu.

It is curious that in order to pull us out of our economic malaise that we are now reduced to drawing upon science fiction. But does the Obama Administration really want to be associated with The Architects of Fear?