Econ student asks Prof question about Stiglitz

Gattopardo. I like that word. If I were a novelist, I would write a book with a character named Gattopardo. Hillary Gattopardo. And I would have her run for president on the “most progressive” agenda of All-Time.

wv wrote:

An Undergraduate’s Question About Economic Policy: A Professor Replies

w
v

The Keynesian consensus in America was roughly from late FDR through LBJ and into part of Nixon’s presidency. It corresponds, almost exactly, with our one and only Middle Class boom (1947-1973). We had no such thing before it or after Keynesian economics was abandoned by the DC powers that be in the early 1970s. With the rise of neoliberalism roughly in 1973, through Obama’s presidency, we’ve been in an anti-Keynes consensus. Roughly 43 years now of opposition to Keynes, from both major parties.

My own view is that Marxian economists are the best, in general, when it comes to understanding and analyzing capitalism, with Keynesians number two. The worst of the bunch have always been the Austrians, followed by their kissing cousins, the Chicago School folks, who basically invented neoliberalism. Reagan/Thatcher consolidated all of that politically, took garbage (and voodoo) economics mainstream . . . and then, with the arrival of the tea party, we sunk even deeper into economic illiteracy with the rise of the neo-Austrians — the children of Von Mises and Hayek. Ron Paul and his fanboys set the table for that, but the tea party helped mainstream it. And the Pauls and the tea party folks added Ayn Rand to the Austrians to make the horrific even more odious. They helped give abject selfishness a “philosophical” veneer.

I wish America would evolve and grow up enough to bring in actual Marxians and libertarian socialist economists. But it likely never will, at least not in my lifetime. So the next best thing is to return to Keynes. Staying with right-wing economic idiocy is killing this country, and the world.

Billy_T wrote:

So the next best thing is to return to Keynes.

This nation hasn’t left Keynes and that is the problem. Nearly $20 trillion in debt but to a Keynesian its all la la land.

Zooey wrote:

bnw wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

So the next best thing is to return to Keynes.

This nation hasn’t left Keynes and that is the problem. Nearly $20 trillion in debt but to a Keynesian its all la la land.

Okay. Nobody here is going to take that comment seriously. I’m just saying.

Obama adds $9 Trillion to the debt in 8 years. Anyone relying upon the USD had better start taking it seriously.

And btw, the CBO told Bush back in 2001 that if he would just leave tax rates alone — at Clinton levels — we would pay off the debt by 2009. Not just balance the budget. Pay off the entire debt.

Bush didn’t listen. He cut taxes twice, revenues fell for his first three years and his last, he started two unnecessary wars and doubled the debt.

Keynes was emphatic on the need to pay down the debt in good times, and to only use countercyclical pump-priming in bad times, when the private sector itself was in contraction or too sluggish.

The morons in the GOP push(ed) for slashing spending while we were in recession, which every decent economist knows would just send us deeper into contraction. Government spending IS spending, and a capitalist economy, based primarily (70%) on consumer spending, can’t survive without that.

When you cut government spending, you’re cutting overall spending in the economy. It’s the same exact thing as saying “We need to slash consumer spending in the private sector right now because we’re in a recession. It’s our only way out.”

Right-wingers, in general, are economic illiterates.