Posted on 12/04/2010 4:06:23 PM PST by mandaladon
Investors Business Daily titles its editorial today, “Keynesianism, RIP,” declaring the government-spending stimulus philosophy discredited in the wake of the 19th consecutive month of 9% or higher unemployment rates. IBD wants Barack Obama to put aside his “stubborn pride” (and his economic team) and start working with Republicans on policies that will truly stimulate the economy. But is the death certificate for Keynesianism premature?
Please, Mr. President, you and your economic team of born-again Keynesian central planners have had your chance.
Remember having to fire Christina Romer, among others, for forecasting your $800 billion stimulus bill would keep the jobless rate below 8%? Now, private economists are forecasting a 10% rate for next year. For the first time, the U.S. is facing Euro-style structural unemployment. This is no time to be raising taxes.
Yet, in a sign that ideology still trumps reality, Romer’s replacement carries on the discredited tax-and-spend torch. …
An unrepentant Obama insists the lopsided election was a referendum on the economy and not a repudiation of his policies. He says voters were “not thinking clearly” when they voted for change.
Who’s not thinking clearly, Mr. President?
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
We could hope.
We need a Constitutional Amendment apparently, to forbid the government from spending money on anything but government functions.
it was dead before it was alive. kinda like obama’s presidency.
Exactly right. They weren't in 2008 when they voted the Kenyan into the White House.
it was dead before it was alive. kinda like obama’s presidency.
Well, after the Berlin Wall fell, we all thought that Communism is dead. But we forgot to drive a stake through its heart.
Bad ideas that allow insiders to seize and hold power will be always with us.
Laying dormant perhaps.
Keynesianism remains vigorous so long as there are politicians and governments.
Dream on. This admin’s policy isn’t Keynesian because the outcome hoped for isn’t to restore a healthy economy. That’s just what people looking for a rational explanation are hoping it is.
The naked truth: BO, his puppet masters and the droves of Marxist minions are bent on destroying the United States of America the fastest way they know how.
In the long run, we’re all dead.
It is dead. But the keep building a house for a ghost.
“But that doesn’t mean Keynesianism is dead. It may be momentarily discredited, but it has a powerful attraction to politicians. Modern-day Keynesianism allows them to look busy during a crisis and act as though they’re, well, acting. It also allows politicians to get their hands on a lot of cash — and that allows them to share the spoils with key backers and constituents. It’s practically built for pork. Perhaps even more seductively, it gives politicians the illusion of control over the economy, allowing them to pick winners and losers. Unfortunately, that is just an illusion; as Hayek explains in The Road to Serfdom, the economy is too complicated for central controllers to operate it, and those attempts to do so result in economic ruin.
“That was the reason Communism failed, and it’s the reason modern-day Keynesianism fails as well. Putting the resources in the hands of bureaucrats rather than the market stakeholders makes markets less efficient, distorts incentives and outcomes, and inevitably leads to economic failure. “
Now for the last time, Bambi is NOT Keynesian.
He is Hawaiianese.
Heck the Nobel committee gave the prize in economics to a Keynesian fundamentalist a year or two back. Keynesianism was dead for a number of decades before the recent demand driven contraction, but the advocates were there just waiting for another opportunity to bring it back. There is no reason to think that the big government types wont use Keynsianism and the next demand driven contraction to once more seek big increases in government.
J M Keynes is a zombie still looking to devour economies.
Obama doesn’t believe in Keynesianism (if he even knows what that is). The “stimulus” was and did exactly what it was supposed to: funnel massive money (and power) to his cronies, buy votes, and wreck the economy.
Period.
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