7.30.2010

The hubris of the Keynesians

I posted this comment over at Econbrowser, the blog of the eminent UCSD economist James Hamilton and Wisconsin Democratic pundit Menzie Chinn. In response to a post about the promised recovery not having arrived, I wrote:
(Channeling my inner Keynesian)

10% of GDP is obviously far too small a deficit. Let's try 15%!

And along comes a Keynesian to respond:
Actually, W.C. Varones, yes that is exactly it with no sarcasm included. People always say WWII brought about an end to the Great Depression without thinking through why that was. It was because it was truly epic levels of deficit spending.

Such hubris! Keynesians think they can fix the delicate and infinitely complex system of the economy by hitting it with series of hammers, each hammer larger than the one before it. When the economy lies smashed in pieces, it's obviously because they didn't use a big enough hammer.

Keynesians are to to the economy what George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld are to international relations.

4 comments:

SarahB said...

I'd love that guy to talk about actual percentage of GDP between now and then...destructive, can kicking blowholes.

Anonymous said...

From Ronnie Raygun's 1964 speech -

To be sure, Reagan had his faults but in my book, this reads as nearly Orwellian.

Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits." (my comment - shit that's spooky as I veiw today's 2010 landscape)
The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

I don't think we're getting much in the way of force but we are definitely getting coercion up the ass.

Jeff

Dean said...

Taking Keynesian absurdity to its logical conclusion: we need a new and improved war!


All debts are not created equally. WWII represented temporary discretional spending. We are now saddled with unsustainable legacy debt (Medicare, Social Security, etc.) that we were not 50-60 years ago.

Jr Deputy Accountant said...

Krugman thinks the Dirty Fed should break the law and print, print, print to save us!

Seems like a completely logical solution to me.

Happy Super Tuesday!