Tag: f a hayek

#rsrh Lazy Keynesians.

Do yourself a favor.  First, reacquaint yourself with this excellent Hayek vs. Keynes video.

…by the way: I consider this video to be more of a sequel to the original.

Now, read Jonathan Chait’s fairly drab attempt at push-back (via here, via here).

Notice the difference?

Yup.  What we have here… is a failure… to communicate.  Which is a definite pity, in its way: there really needs to be a good, accessible defense of current neo-Keynesian ec0nomic theory out there, if only to keep the Austrian school from running more amok than they, strictly speaking, deserve.  Unfortunately, what we get instead are dull critiques by those who are: a, less creative than the people that provided the original argument (and who are being somewhat bitter about being less creative); and b, more interested in trying to score partisan political points than they are in actually doing a good critique in the first place.  Put more simply: EconStories came up with something that people who don’t actually know much about economics can grok.  The best that TNR could come up with were some drab arguments designed to keep at least some of the Keynesian faithful from lapsing into heresy.

Guess who won?

‘Fight of the Century.’

(Via Instapundit) EconStories has another one of their extremely good Keynes v. Hayek videos up:

My only issue with this series is that it’s fairly obvious that the creators are fundamentally on Hayek’s side… and while they do (I think) a credible job of being fair to Keynes it would be helpful for the economic debate if there was somebody who was ready to as passionately, entertainingly, and creatively argue Keynesian theory on its own merits.  Of course, there is some argument whether Keynes himself would be comfortable with some of the stuff done in his name these days…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

We are all Keynesians now, if you define ‘all’ as ‘< 12%.'

But no doubt the administration just needs to explain the situation better to the American people.

No doubt.

While influential 20th Century economist John Maynard Keynes would say it’s best to increase deficit spending in tough economic times, only 11% of American adults agree and think the nation needs to increase its deficit spending at this time. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 70% disagree and say it would be better to cut the deficit.

In fact, 59% think Keynes had it backwards and that increasing the deficit at this time would hurt the economy rather than help.

To help the economy, most Americans (56%) believe that cutting the deficit is the way to go.

Hey! How about another speech? That might work.

Moe Lane

PS: This is a good excuse to post this.

Crossposted to RedState.