The Speed of an Economic Recovery

[LikelyToBreak]

josephpalazzo wrote:

The problem with the naysayers is that they see Keynesianism everywhere when there is government intervention.

Questions:

(1) When you commit a crime, and the government sends the police after you, is that Keynesianism? Absolutely not.
(2) The government requires you to have a driver's permit, is that Keynesianism? Absolutely not.
(3) The government has made it unlawful for a woman to have an abortion after 17 weeks into pregnancy, is that Keynesianism? Absolutely not.
(4) The government is spying on you, is that Keynesianism? Absolutely not.

There are thousands of cases when the government interfers with your life, but are all those interventions part of Keynesianism? Absolutely not.

Keynesianism requires the government to interfer under a specific economic condition for a specific economic reason, which I have outlined in this thread. If anyone cannot understand this conceptual basic fact, then that person should stay out of discussion in regard to economic theory.

Good!  =D>   I like it all except the last sentence.  And even it is not that bad.

[josephpalazzo]

josephpalazzo wrote:

The problem with the naysayers is that they see Keynesianism everywhere when there is government intervention.

Questions:

(1) When you commit a crime, and the government sends the police after you, is that Keynesianism? Absolutely not.
(2) The government requires you to have a driver's permit, is that Keynesianism? Absolutely not.
(3) The government has made it unlawful for a woman to have an abortion after 17 weeks into pregnancy, is that Keynesianism? Absolutely not.
(4) The government is spying on you, is that Keynesianism? Absolutely not.

There are thousands of cases when the government interfers with your life, but are all those interventions part of Keynesianism? Absolutely not.

Keynesianism requires the government to interfer under a specific economic condition for a specific economic reason, which I have outlined in this thread. If anyone cannot understand this conceptual basic fact, then that person should stay out of discussion in regard to economic theory.

Good!  =D>   I like it all except the last sentence.  And even it is not that bad.

Here's the deal. There are approximately 10,000 people with a PhD in economics in the world, many of them with an extentive list of publications in peer-reviewed journals. Paul Krugman is in the top 10 of that list. Anyone claiming that he/she knows more about economic theory than Krugman, as some posters have claimed in this thread,  would have to show some heavy-duty credentials. And in a very few posts, I have shown that these same people are clueless about elementary concepts anyone would find in studying Economic 101. I believe I have made my point that these people are fucking idiots. Sorry about the language and my lack of diplomacy, but it is what it is.

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I'm not an economist, but I do agree with josephpalazzo when he says the main economic system used in the US for the last hundred years is primarily "corruption."  When we have seen trillions go to the banks and the only ones whom seem to have benefited from it were the top 1%'ers, I tend to think corruption.  When the audit of Federal Reserve shows 9 trillion dollars unaccounted for and another 16 trillion dollars having been "lent" to foreign central banks, I think corruption.  But, than I am loony conspiracy theorist.  I'm sure it was just a bookkeeping error.  I mean, what the hell, it is only 9 trillion dollars.  Not like it was a large amount of money or anything.

I do wish josephpalazzo and others would take the time to explain better why they think the way they do.  I really liked it when josephpalazzo explained Keynesian economics in regards to controlling the money supply.  Then he seemed to have gotten frustrated and started saying people were clueless, have little brains.  The is an atheist forum, not a forum for CPA's.  I know it is difficult to explain complicated things sometimes, but we can at least find links that will explain it somewhat.  That is what I did when Xerographica, (not sure about that spelling,) asked about banks.

Anyway, carry on.

The problem with the naysayers is that they see Keynesianism everywhere when there is government intervention.

Questions:

(1) When you commit a crime, and the government sends the police after you, is that Keynesianism? Absolutely not.
(2) The government requires you to have a driver's permit, is that Keynesianism? Absolutely not.
(3) The government has made it unlawful for a woman to have an abortion after 17 weeks into pregnancy, is that Keynesianism? Absolutely not.
(4) The government is spying on you, is that Keynesianism? Absolutely not.

There are thousands of cases when the government interfers with your life, but are all those interventions part of Keynesianism? Absolutely not.

Keynesianism requires the government to interfer under a specific economic condition for a specific economic reason, which I have outlined in this thread. If anyone cannot understand this conceptual basic fact, then that person should stay out of discussion in regard to economic theory.

The fact that I have to explain such basic elementary facts speaks loudly about the intelligence of some of the posters, who would flunk Economics 101 only after a day or two.

Good argument there.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Joseph, while I agree with most of what you say telling people they're idiots and should stay out of the thread for disagreeing isn't going to win friends and influence people.  Like it or not we do encourage discussion here even if people at times seem to not have graduated Beta Phi Kappa in economics. I took econ101.. I actually passed it and I was one of those good for nothing tree hugging art students..

[entropy]

Economic and political analyses can be tricky to separate. Economics is a science that looks for patterns of exchange of goods and services amongst people and tries to use those patterns to predict economic outcomes given different economic inputs. The reason that type of analysis is tricky to separate from politics is that the patterns of goods and services are, to a very significant degree, dependent on the rules that govern the exchanges with such rules usually coming from a political process.

Krugman recently admitted to a mistake that he had made that illustrates the point pretty well, I think:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/1 ... down/?_r=0

Since Rogoff seems to have decided to mention my excessive pessimism about euro survival as often as possible, I think it's important to be clear about what I got wrong. As far as I can tell, I was right about the straight economics: internal devaluation has proved every bit as difficult and costly as I (and many others) warned it would. What has come as a surprise is the politics — the incredible willingness of southern European countries to suffer mass unemployment, year after year, rather than break ranks. The economic framework I was using looks fine, but clearly I misjudged the political landscape.

As an economist that respects the scientific nature of economics, Krugman is big on making and assessing economic models by cranking through the data and seeing which models best predict the outcomes given the rules for exchanges that are in place and the the parameters of key factors that are effecting actual exchanges (e.g., there is a limited supply of a high demand resource). Based on those things, his model told him that austerity in Europe would lead to certain kinds of economic problems (the dynamics of internal devaluation). But his economic science did not model what would happen in the political sphere. He misjudged that. He underestimated the ability of the European financial plutocrats to be able to keep dangling just enough credit in front of countries like Greece to keep them from jumping off the European Union ship. [That last sentence is my characterization, not one I have read from him.]

But it is important, I think, to reiterate that his economic model did predict the economic consequences of the type of austerity programs that were utilized through much of the European Union. I believe the same model also basically predicted the results of the austerity programs that Great Britain tried.

[lumpymunk]

...blahblah... appeal to authority...

And...

Paul Krugman is in the top 10 of that list.

What a coincidence that an economist that chronically recommends massive government spending gets really famous?  Economists that recommend government do less stuff not so famous.  

HMMMMMMMMMM