patrick.net

And it is beautiful! A couple more bailouts and we will reach the goal of 99% below poverty. Now go eat your fried foods and watch your moving pictures.

Also should note that the poor wretch waiting for the soup kitchen to open has an environmentally sustainable "green" bag. Kudos to him for protecting the environment so that I may despoil it.

Huntington Moneyworth III, Esq says

Also should note that the poor wretch waiting for the soup kitchen to open has an environmentally sustainable "green" bag.

He'll need to eat that green bag to survive.

shrekgrinch says

The public sector unions were propped up as was Chrysler and General Motors (union jobs were at risk, after all). And Wall Street and the Banks were totally propped up. It ain't a Depression for them.

Fair enough. I agree with that. But as you suggest, that's not really avoiding a depression but protecting a small group at the expense of everyone else.

shrekgrinch says

next generation of economists who don't worship FDR's as

I think it's more of a Keynesian worship than an FDR worship. FDR wasn't even mentioned in my economics class back in 1993. The text and the professor completely revolved around the models of John Maynard Keynes. Sure, the course mentioned some per-Keynesian ideas, which it called "classical economics, but it never mentioned the Austrian model.

I would also argue that it is precisely Keynesian ideas that have gotten us into this whole mess.
shrekgrinch says

Welcome to Obama's America! You just summed up The One's philosophy about business policies rather smartly.

Obama's America is the same as Bush's America. Are you really suggesting that the Republicans are any better on these issues? In this respect, both parties are exactly the same.

Both parties tax and borrow to spend recklessly. The only difference is what they spend the money on. Dems spend it on welfare, and Repubs spend it on killing brown foreigners with funny sounding names. Bill Maher's analysis in the other thread was spot on.

But push comes to shove, both parties always defend the interests of Wall Street, the big banks (not the small ones), and transnational corporations.

shrekgrinch says

low skilled, poorly educated people in America have become rather useless in our economy as far as production is concerned

And the same thing is happening to high skilled, heavily educated people in America. Our economic system is broke on many levels.

Wow Shrenk, I don't care for the Neo Libs ether, but I'll take "New Deal" FDR polices over "Raw Deal" Bush Obama economic policies any day of the Millenia.

Dan8267 says

I would also argue that it is precisely Keynesian ideas that have gotten us into this whole mess.

OK--please make that argument. I'm all ears.

tatupu70 says

Dan8267 says

I would also argue that it is precisely Keynesian ideas that have gotten us into this whole mess.

OK--please make that argument. I'm all ears.

There you go.

If you want me to dumb this down, I'll give the following example.

The ultimate Keynesian solution to our current depression, which resulted from the housing bubble, is simply to burn everyone's house, condo, apartment, or shack to the ground. No exceptions.

Doing so will generate a huge demand in housing which will support high real estate prices and spur the entire housing industry. It will put builders back to work to replace the houses burned down. It will create demand for furniture factors since the contents of the houses were also destroyed. It would introduce quadrillions of dollars of economic activity.

Best of all, since we don't count the destruction of the houses as a loss to GDP, burning and rebuilding the entire nation will quadruple our GDP! Talk about growth! And imagine all the jobs created by this plan. It's not just in the housing industry and related fields. We'll have increase demand for doctors and pharmaceuticals as children die from pneumonia while waiting for shelter to be rebuilt. And think of all the business for funeral homes this would produce. That's putting the fun back in funeral.

All in all, Keynesian economics states unequivocally that burning our nation to the ground like Nero did to Rome is the solution to all our economic problems. Anybody got a fiddle?

Dan8267 says

There you go.

Not sure how you could dumb it down any more than that powerpoint does, but it's clear he doesn't understand Keynes or the current economic problems. I didn't see one reference to wealth inequality in his slides...

Dan8267 says

The ultimate Keynesian solution to our current depression, which resulted from the housing bubble, is simply to burn everyone's house, condo, apartment, or shack to the ground. No exceptions.

Interesting strawman, but that's not the ultimate Keynesian solution at all.

It's really NOT that complicated. When 50% of the population has no money, an economy will always grind to a halt. How this is not obvious to everyone is beyond me.

shrekgrinch says

The public sector unions were propped up

Which is why 500,000 public workers have been laid off since Obama took office. You should know shrek, consdiering that your own state leads the nation in teacher layoffs.

shrekgrinch says

It was Hitler and Tojo who finally got us out of that mess, not FDR.

THanks for admitting that Keynesian economics works. What do you think WWII was? Hint: It was nothing more than a massive govt. spending program. It was a New Deal 2.0. Instad of spending moeny to build roads and bridges, we instead spent money to blow up roads and bridges.

tatupu70 says

Interesting strawman, but that's not the ultimate Keynesian solution at all.

Simply saying that something is a strawman doesn't make it so. This is becoming the new "insert argument here" tactic when people can't think of a rebuttal.

tatupu70 says

It's really NOT that complicated. When 50% of the population has no money, an economy will always grind to a halt. How this is not obvious to everyone is beyond me.

That is obvious. The question is why does 50% of the population have no money? The answer is partly because the economy grinded to a halt. Another part is that Keynesian economics says that any demand, even wasteful, artificial demand, is a good thing. The housing bubble disproved that.

Followers of Keynes still believe that the bubble was a good thing and the bust was the bad thing. Austrians realize that the bust was the painful, but necessary solution to the excess and malinvestments of the bubble. The bust should have been accepted rather than fought. The losses should have been realized as quickly as possible rather than covered up. The guilty firms should have been left to die instead of being protected from their mistakes by government.

Had this happened, then trust would have been restored and commerce could have continued after a brief, but painful pause. Instead, we have a protracted depression.

Dan8267 says

Another part is that Keynesian economics says that any demand, even wasteful, artificial demand, is a good thing. The housing bubble disproved that.

See--that's where you are wrong. Keynes doesn't say that at all.

Dan8267 says

Followers of Keynes still believe that the bubble was a good thing and the bust was the bad thing

Please show me one person who believes the bubble was a good thing. You are good at posting strawmen arguments. I'll give you that.

Dan8267 says

The bust should have been accepted rather than fought. The losses should have been realized as quickly as possible rather than covered up. The guilty firms should have been left to die instead of being protected from their mistakes by government.

Really? Who cares if the economy implodes? Unemployment at 50%? Riots on the streets? That's preferable to the current situation?

Dan8267 says

Had this happened, then trust would have been restored and commerce could have continued after a brief, but painful pause. Instead, we have a protracted depression.

That's a nice fairy tale, but there is no reason to think things would have actually worked out that way.

tatupu70 says

Please show me one person who believes the bubble was a good thing. You are good at posting strawmen arguments. I'll give you that.

Again, just because you call something a stawman, doesn't make it so. Now, if you don't want to accept what I'm saying, there is nothing I can possibly say to convince you otherwise. All I can do is point you to the evidence. If you choose to ignore that, it's all on you. I'm not going to even try to convince you otherwise. Invest how you see fit

I will give you the benefit of showing this one last time, that yes, Keynesian is bad and Austrian is good. And I'll put it in video form to make it easy to absorb. But you'll actually have to listen to the video.

> Please show me one person who believes the bubble was a good thing.

--> The following video shows a dozen people who believed the bubble was a great thing. Turn on your speakers and take out the cotton from your ears for best results. And don't make me go frame by frame through this video pointing out the people and what they said.

Peter Schiff, Austrian Economist, predicts economic crisis and coming inflationary depression.

And if that's not enough. Here's another classic.

Peter Schiff Was Right 2006 - 2007 (2nd Edition)

Again, if you're not even willing to be open to admitting that Keynesian Economics is flawed, there's nothing I can do about it.

tatupu70 says

Dan8267 says

Had this happened, then trust would have been restored and commerce could have continued after a brief, but painful pause. Instead, we have a protracted depression.

That's a nice fairy tale, but there is no reason to think things would have actually worked out that way.

Yeah, that's the great thing about not giving counterplans a chance. When all the shit hits the fan, the people who's policies failed miserably can always say, "well, it would have been worse if we had tried it your way" without there being any evidence one way or the other.

How about this, how about us trying it my way and then we'll see. Let's put the theory to the test. The status quo has already fucked things beyond belief, so what's so bad about trying something new?

Dan8267 says

The following video shows a dozen people who believed the bubble was a great thing. Turn on your speakers and take out the cotton from your ears for best results. And don't make me go frame by frame through this video pointing out the people and what they said.

I'll admit that I didn't last the 10 minutes, but I didn't see anyone saying that a bubble is a good thing. Could you post who they were? And what they said?

Dan8267 says

Again, if you're not even willing to be open to admitting that Keynesian Economics is flawed, there's nothing I can do about it.

I'm certainly open to it, but I'm waiting for you to provide any rational arguments explaining your position. I really don't think you understand Keynesian economics and that is part of the problem.

Dan8267 says

Yeah, that's the great thing about not giving counterplans a chance. When all the shit hits the fan, the people who's policies failed miserably can always say, "well, it would have been worse if we had tried it your way" without there being any evidence one way or the other.

Or people can say--it would have been much better if you had only done it my way...

I wouldn't say the policies failed miserably though. Things are definitely better than they were in 2008. Unemployment is falling. The US is working trough the housing issues. The economy has moved off the edge of the chasm.

How about 1937? Wasn't that trying it your way?

Dan8267 says

Awesome. Discrediting all Keynesians because Ben Stein made a poor stock prediction? Now that is perfectly log.ical

tatupu70 says

It's really NOT that complicated. When 50% of the population has no money, an economy will always grind to a halt

I'm a little sick and tired of the wealth inequality BS. There is a reason there is wealth inequality and it isn't because an evil 1% decided it would be a good thing that people were not able to make a living and grind the economy to a halt. The evil 1% were just playing the game set forth by the corrupt government goons. If they don't play the game, they'll be a loser and someone else will be crowned the winner. I'm not saying they are saints (see above, I called them evil) but they are playing by the rules - which is buy the politicians before someone else does. The revolving door between wall street and Washington pretty much explains why they were bailed out and we got the finger.

tatupu70 says

I'll admit that I didn't last the 10 minutes

That's what -- he? -- said

I could help you with that, but let's offline that conversation. I think of baseball and England.

tatupu70 says

Could you post who they were? And what they said?

As I said,

And don't make me go frame by frame through this video pointing out the people and what they said.

If you're too lazy to passively listen to the video, I doubt you'll actively read a transcript of it.

tatupu70 says

Discrediting all Keynesians because Ben Stein made a poor stock prediction?

Hey, you asked for one example. And no, one example doesn't discredit all Keynesian, but I could easily give you 1000 examples - oh wait, I just did in the two above videos. So, the example I quoted above is typical. It's good to illustrate the point.

tatupu70 says

How about 1937? Wasn't that trying it your way?

What the hell happened in 1937 that was Austrian?

tatupu70 says

Unemployment is falling. The US is working trough the housing issues.

Unemployment is not falling. The stats are starting to exclude more and more long-term unemployed from the labor force. What do you think the government counts when it tallies the unemployment figure? It counts the number of people getting unemployment benefits, which run out after so long.

I'm not sure what you consider "working through the housing issues". The answer to that is lower prices.

tatupu70 says

I really don't think you understand Keynesian economics and that is part of the problem.

Translation: You don't support Keynesian economics. Therefore, you must not "understand" it.

I assure you, I understand the theory better than most economists. You see, I can actually do the math. The typical "economist" can barely do arithmetic.

But what I know is irrelevant. By any standard, Keynesian economics has empirically failed. And since it has had no competition for 80 years, you can't blame anything but the theory itself.

Why do you hate public employees shrek? What do you have against police officers and air traffic controllers?

shrekgrinch says

Really? I guess you want unemployment levels as high as 25% and as low as 14% for about a decade then?

Actually shrek, unemployment went down to 1.5% during WWII. Again, WWII was a Keynesian govt. spending program.

"Don't recall seeing that under Bush."

Because under Bush we had a massive housing bubble. From 2001-2009, there were ZERO private sector jobs created. We lost 653,000 private sector jobs under Bush. The only job gains under Bush were in government and in government contractors. Jobs might have been growing on trees in DC and northern Virginia and Wall St., but that was not the case in most of the country.

Dan8267 says

If you're too lazy to passively listen to the video, I doubt you'll actively read a transcript of it.

OK--I wasted 10 minutes and watched it. As I expected, NOBODY said that they were pro-bubble. NOONE. Would you like to try again and show me ONE case of anyone saying they are for bubbles?

Dan8267 says

Hey, you asked for one example. And no, one example doesn't discredit all Keynesian, but I could easily give you 1000 examples - oh wait, I just did in the two above videos. So, the example I quoted above is typical. It's good to illustrate the point.

I'm still looking for one example. Keynes said nothing about picking stocks. That example is an utter fail.