patrick.net

thunderlips11 says

After Keynesianism gave way to Friedmanites in the late 1970's, we had two decades of prosperity, through the year 2000, and the economy went through virtuous cycles as people endeavor to be more productive, instead of trying to rip each other off.

Two decades of a credit expansion... culminating in two massive bubbles where the government had to rescue the Die Hard Free Marketeers with trillions of dollars.

Things looked great in the 20s, too. Lots of credit expansion, also.

It was the "weakest" recovery in Post War History.

The government did not have to "rescue" anyone. It was the interventionists like yourself who advocated government stepping in to rescue the cronies, at the expense of the rest of the society.

thunderlips11 says

, instead of trying to rip each other off.

S&L Crisis, Pets.com, the LTCM bailout?

Pets.com did go bankrupt, and that's how capitalistic price discovery works: resources get re-allocated from incompetents to those who can do better. As for the bailouts, those were crony projects advocated by Keynesian FED apologists like yourself.

thunderlips11 says

No matter how much the Right tries to spin, they can never get away from the fact that the US at it's most Social Democrat had the greatest expansion in the standard of living, ever.

Nonsense. The fastest improvement in living standards took place in the late 19th century and early 20th century, the Guilded Age. The US was far from Social Democratic during that time; in fact, any social democrats arriving from Europe were treated as communists and "anarchists" like we treat Jihadis today.

The only time period since 1980 where there was actual upward wage pressure was the late 90s - and businesses quickly lobbied government to whip out those H1-Bs ASAP!

Why should it be a surprise that businesses would lobby a nexus of political power? Do you let your tenant pass their apartment to their relative when you know you can get substantially more in the market place? Do you let your tenant live in your property for free? If you do not run your business as a charity, why should anyone else be expected to?

Reality says

Hoover started the Great Depression by preventing the market from clearing

You're kidding, right? Treasury Secretary Mellon said to Hoover, "Liquidate** Everything... liquidate businesses, liquidate workers, liquidate Aunt Jemima, etc. etc."

Hoover instead had sit downs with large companies and tried to get them not to fire anybody or cut wages.

That's literally it. That was the extent of Hoover's interference with "Clearing the Markets".

If he did anything beyond that, it sure didn't work. Wages fell and unemployment exploded.

** Also a popular euphemism for "Murder"

Reality says

You think that somehow digging for money is better than bankruptcy writing off bad debts?

Straw Man. Did not say that - compared your idea that mal-investment is still economic activity to Keynes' idea of spending for the sake of spending in a recession.

Reality says

The government did not have to "rescue" anyone. It was the interventionists like yourself who advocated government stepping in to rescue the cronies, at the expense of the rest of the society.

I've never been in favor of the Government bailing out the Free Market, Deregulation-pushing banks.

Reality says

Why should it be a surprise that businesses would lobby a nexus of political power? Do you let your tenant pass their apartment to their relative when you know you can get substantially more in the market place? Do you let your tenant live in your property for free? If you do not run your business as a charity, why should anyone else be expected to?

Wait - huh?

What does a Corporation - or an entire Industry - lobbying the Government to give them subsidies, loopholes, special treatment, or even a bailout have to do with a landlord and a tenant, both private actors, entering into a rent agreement?

thunderlips11 says

Reality says

Hoover started the Great Depression by preventing the market from clearing

You're kidding, right? Treasury Secretary Mellon said to Hoover, "Liquidate** Everything... liquidate businesses, liquidate workers, liquidate Aunt Jemima, etc. etc."

And Hoover refused to take Mellon's advice.

Hoover instead had sit downs with large companies and tried to get them not to fire anybody or cut wages.

That's literally it. That was the extent of Hoover's interference with "Clearing the Markets".

Your ignorance on the subject is putting you in a position bordering on lying. Read FDR's platform in the 1932 election. Hoover had an "albphabetical soup of government committees" trying to hold up prices, and thereby preventing bad debts from being liquidated and the market from clearing.

If he did anything beyond that, it sure didn't work. Wages fell and unemployment exploded.

Of course it would not work. Just like such policies are not working this time around either. When mal-investments are discovered and market readjustments have to be made, you can let the market correction take place quickly, or you can intervene and slow it down to a pace like pulling the bandage off one hair at a time and really exacerbate the pain.

** Also a popular euphemism for "Murder"

The choice is between killing the bad business vs. killing the actual flesh and blood people in terms of their time and savings to be burned to be sacrificed to sustain the bad businesses. Which one do you kill?

thunderlips11 says

Reality says

Hoover started the Great Depression by preventing the market from clearing

You're kidding, right? Treasury Secretary Mellon said to Hoover, "Liquidate** Everything... liquidate businesses, liquidate workers, liquidate Aunt Jemima, etc. etc."

And Hoover refused to take Mellon's advice.

Hoover instead had sit downs with large companies and tried to get them not to fire anybody or cut wages.

That's literally it. That was the extent of Hoover's interference with "Clearing the Markets".

Your ignorance on the subject is putting you in a position bordering on lying. Read FDR's platform in the 1932 election. Hoover had an "albphabetical soup of government committees" trying to hold up prices, and thereby preventing bad debts from being liquidated and the market from clearing.

If he did anything beyond that, it sure didn't work. Wages fell and unemployment exploded.

Of course it would not work. Just like such policies are not working this time around either. When mal-investments are discovered and market readjustments have to be made, you can let the market correction take place quickly, or you can intervene and slow it down to a pace like pulling the bandage off one hair at a time and really exacerbate the pain.

** Also a popular euphemism for "Murder"

The choice is between killing the bad business vs. killing the actually flesh and blood people in terms of their time and savings to be burned to be sacrificed to sustain the bad businesses. Which one do you kill? By all logic and moral standards it should the businesses that caused the problems, but the crony lobby spins killing people to save bad businesses into some kind of heroic endeavor.

thunderlips11 says

Reality says

You think that somehow digging for money is better than bankruptcy writing off bad debts?

Straw Man. Did not say that - compared your idea that mal-investment is still economic activity to Keynes' idea of spending for the sake of spending in a recession.

Mal-investment is waste, as is spending for the sake of spending.

Reality says

albphabetical soup of government committees

Committees are those "Sit Down Conversations". A Committee is not a Government Program like the CCC. Hoover's committees didn't create countless jobs for ordinary people. It was a talk shop trying to convince big industry not to lay off or cut wages. Like most "voluntary" "Self-regulation", it failed utterly.

You gotta stop reading those crank books trying to make Hoover look like FDR Lite and desperately searching for anything government related to blame the Great Depression on.

Hoover refused to weaken the currency - unlike Britain and Germany which did. It's why the Depression was the worst in the USA, much worse than in the UK. Britain went off the Gold Standard in 1931 (though not without much kicking or screaming), and probably mitigated the Depression by a great deal. The UK also put everybody on the dole, too.

It's interesting to see Gold Bugs (not saying you are one) try to twist history into the idea that the Powerful hate Gold and love Fiat. Never! Hoover spent the 30s ranting about FDR's attack on the Gold Clause. But even FDR didn't try to dump the Gold Standard entirely.

Reality says

Of course it would not work. Just like such policies are not working this time around either. When mal-investments are discovered and market readjustments have to be made, you can let the market correction take place quickly, or you can intervene and slow it down to a pace like pulling the bandage off one hair at a time and really exacerbate the pain.

Here's your problem. Guys like you say government spending didn't work to lift us out of the Great Depression. But then, no matter what, you're faced with both WW2 and the continuation of some programs - and some new ones - after the war, which not only lead us out of the Depression, but ushered in an era of unbelievable gains in the standard of living.

Where Joe Factory Worker moved from a Tenement sharing a faucet with 5 other families, to a Levittown. Got a car. A TV. Took vacations at the lake/shore.

Military Spending is also government spending.Reality says

The choice is between killing the bad business vs. killing the actually flesh and blood people in terms of their time and savings to be burned to be sacrificed to sustain the bad businesses.

Not really; since unemployed people can die pretty quick. They don't have assets to draw upon to survive for years while "liquidation" is taking hold.

And they did, too.

Reality says

Keynes did not have his book ("General Theory") until 1936!

Doesn't matter. He was already a public figure with multiple books in the 20s, wrote a book criticizing Churchill's 1925 Gold Standard return decision in 1930 (after many articles, letters, and speeches throughout the 20s), wrote another book on policy recommendations in 1933, and his famous debate with Hayek was in the first years of the 30s (which Hayek admits he lost utterly).