Tag: keynesian economics

Three questions for discussion: Keynesian economics.

In order:

  1. Did events of the last three years prove, once and for all, that Keynesian economics simply do not work?
  2. Did events of the last three years instead prove, once and for all, that it is futile to expect politicians to enact a truly Keynesian economic policy?
  3. Is there any kind of practical difference between 1. and 2.?

Discuss.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: What?  Personally, I take the position that the answers, in order, are: sorta; pretty much, yeah; and no, not really.

Paragraph of the Day, post-Christmas hangover edition.

Although I suspect that the majority of the people reading this didn’t go as overboard this year on Christmas as they have in the past.  Anyway, Samizdata (via Ed Driscoll, in reaction to what was an atypically dumb UK Times article):

It may seem a Scrooge-like message for this time of year to point out that you cannot spend money that you don’t have; businesses cannot invest money that has not been already saved, and that interest rates must reflect the balance of supply and demand for savings. The “Austrian” economic insight that money is a claim on resources, and that two people cannot hold the same claim on a resource at the same time, needs to be relentlessly rammed home.

Because the alternative, of course, is to have objective reality do it for you. And the thing about objective reality? It’s rarely gentle.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.